The Arctic Front
by Irony-chan
Summary: A sequel to 'An Early Thaw', with the further adventures of Steve Rogers in the 1980s. Why, exactly, was there a disgraced Black Widow agent in Tony's room on Thanksgiving? That story actually begins four weeks earlier, when a party in Oslo is interrupted by a disaster that turns out to be far less natural than it seems.
1. Chapter 1: The Tønsberg Incident

Even in the 1940's, Steve Rogers had never liked swanky parties very much. In the back of his mind he always ended up comparing them to the parties his friends and neighbours had thrown when he was a child in Brooklyn – raucous affairs where everybody had a home-cooked meal, followed by music, games, and laughter. The political and military galas he'd attended as Captain America were a very different animal. Rather than being basic but filling, the food was elegant but minuscule, more for looking at than for eating. The music was delicate, the 'games' consisted of polite maneuvering, and the laughter was high-pitched, false, and inoffensive. Once the novelty of hob-nobbing with senators and generals had worn off, Steve had taken to sneaking out in favour of a few beers with Peggy and the Commandos.

It seemed like not much had changed in the forty years he'd missed. It was Friday, the first of November 1986, and Steve and Nick Fury were climbing the stairs to a fancy house in Oslo. They were to be the guests of honour at a Hallowe'en party given by the American Ambassador to Norway.

"We don't even know this man," Steve muttered to his companion, as they handed in their invitations at the door.

"I think that's kind of the point," Fury replied. "We're here because we're American heroes and he wants to meet us, and Madame Director probably owes him some kind of favour."

The doorman looked up from the invitations, interested. "You two are..." he licked his lips, unsure of the word. " _Astronauter_?"

"That's right," Fury said, with a pleased nod. "We're the astronauts."

"We're not actually astronauts," Steve objected – _astronaut_ was a career. It had qualifications. Indira Bhavana was an astronaut. He and Fury, and Tony Stark, had been more or less passengers on their trip into space.

"I'm Agent Fury, this is Captain Rogers," Fury said.

The doorman waved them into the marble-lined foyer. " _Ambassadør_ Barnum!" he called out. " _Astronauter_!"

"There's our boys!" a voice said in a twanging Texas accent, and the ambassador came hurrying out of the crowd to meet them. He was in his 60's, short and stocky with graying hair that did not quite match his toupee, a beer belly and an alcoholic's oversized nose. He was dressed as Captain Kirk, although he must have weighed twice what William Shatner had in the role, and he seemed to have begun his evening drunk and be determined to stay that way. "Captain Rogers!" he shook Steve's hand enthusiastically. "And Agent Fury. Great to meet both of you! Where's the Stark kid? I invited him, too."

"Tony preferred to go to a party with some of his friends from school," said Steve, who wished he'd joined him. Playing drinking games with a bunch of teenage prodigies from Boston would have been fun. "And Major Bhavana is very busy with her new post at NASA."

Barnum blinked a couple of times in apparent confusion – maybe he couldn't remember who Major Bhavana was – then apparently shrugged it off. "Well, come in, come in," he said. "Everybody's looking forward to meeting you." He put one arm around Steve's shoulders and the other around Fury's, both men having to hunch to allow it, and led them into the ballroom. "Everybody! Everybody!" he shouted. "Look who's here – it's Captain America and Agent Fury!"

The low murmur of conversation in the room died away as the guests turned to look, and Steve stood up straight and did his best to look impressive. It was hard, he thought, to look impressive in a room like this – the ballroom of the ambassador's residence was a vast two-storey space, with columns and a mezzanine all the way around, a glossy hardwood floor and a gold and green paneled ceiling. Dozens of glittering chandeliers provided light, and a band who looked like they thought the material rather beneath them was playing the theme from _The Addams Family_.

"These boys here," the Ambassador said, patting them both on the back, "these are the ones who went to space to save those stranded astronauts! Let's give them a hand, huh?"

There was polite applause, and then the sound of people talking in a half-dozen languages rose again as people came forward to meet them. Within a few minutes, Steve and Fury had been introduced to an exiled Italian prince, a Russian Admiral, an American actor, the Vice-President of the European office of Roxxon Petroleum, the Norwegian Minister of Arts and Culture... and that was about where Steve lost track. This was another thing he'd always hated about official parties. There were always so many people who wanted to shake hands with _Captain America_ that he almost never got any time to enjoy himself, and he soon ran out of anything remotely creative to say to them. All he could do was parrot the words _hi_ and _honoured to meet you_ until the sounds ceased to have any meaning.

Even so, it wouldn't have been _nearly_ so awkward without the costumes. In addition to Ambassador Barnum as Captain Kirk, the prince was in a baggy Superman outfit, Rear Admiral Aleksandr Bocharov was a Viking, and the Roxxon Vice-President was dressed in pink and black lace as Madonna, despite being thirty years older than the pop star. Steve himself was dressed as a cowboy, mostly because he hadn't had any better ideas, and Fury was a pirate. They must all look like fools, he thought.

"Now, don't crowd them!" said Barnum, as Steve and Fury shook hand after hand. "These boys need their space! Get it?" he asked the nearest person, a small brunette dressed as Snow White. "They're astronauts! Their _space_?"

Snow White rolled her eyes.

"Let's get you boys a drink," Barnum added – but then, just as Steve was starting to think this man would be dragging them around by the ears all evening, there was a welcome distraction. A servant in a Dracula costume, took the ambassador's arm and whispered in his ear.

" _Ambassadør_ ," he said. " _Frøken Natter har kommet_."

Steve didn't speak Norwegian, but the language was similar enough to German for him to work out that the statement meant _Miss Natter has come_. And whoever Miss Natter was, her arrival got Barnum's attention in a way even Steve's had not. He perked up like a dog hearing a whistle, and turned towards the door.

And it was no wonder – the woman who'd just been shown inside was gorgeous. She was five or ten years older than Steve and nearly six feet tall, and dressed as Cleopatra in a draping white gown that suggested a great deal while revealing surprisingly little. Her curly dark hair was weighed down by a net of gold and turquoise beads. A very realistic rubber cobra was hanging around her neck, and her face had full red lips, dark green eyes, and prominent cheekbones. The only thing most people would have counted as a flaw was a small mole above her right eyebrow, but that was almost entirely covered by her makeup.

"Eva!" Barnum explained.

The woman gave him a rather pained smile. "Good evening, Bob," she said.

Barnum hurried up and kissed her hand, then grabbed her by the arms and stood on his toes to kiss her lips. This seemed to startle her, but she rose to the occasion as best she could.

"Goodness, Bob," she said. Her voice had a trace of a German accent, but only a trace. "You're in rare form tonight."

"I want you to meet Captain America," said Barnum, and dragged her towards where he'd left Steve and Fury. "Boys, this is Eva Natter, from Mainz," he said, with an arm around the woman's waist. "When people talk about a _supermodel_ , they mean her. You might not have heard of her in the States, but here in Europe she's _huge_. Bigger than me, certainly." He grinned, standing up a little straighter to try to close the four-inch gap in their heights.

"He flatters me," Natter said, trying to wiggle away from him and failing. Steve immediately felt sorry for her. Despite her poise and beauty, this woman looked as if she wasn't sure what _she_ was doing here, either. "You're pretty big, yourself, Captain Rogers," she added. "I used to watch your movies when I was a little girl."

"Thanks," Steve replied, hoping it didn't sound too awkward. He had a pretty good idea by now how corny those films looked in retrospect. "I've been offered a couple of roles since I got back, actually, but I'm really not much of an actor."

"I keep telling Eva she ought to be in movies," said Barnum. "With a butt like hers, who _cares_ if she can act worth a damn?" He patted her rear end while she bit her lip, mortified but clinging to politeness.

There was only one thing Steve could think of to get both her and himself out of this situation, so he did it – he extended a hand to the woman and asked her, "may I have this dance, Miss Natter?"

Her face lit up. "I would be _delighted_ , Captain Rogers!" she said. She seized the excuse to step away from Barnum and linked arms with Steve. "I'll talk to you later, Bob!" she called to Barnum, then lowered her voice and murmured, "thank you."

"You're welcome," said Steve, escorting her out onto the dance floor. "I have to warn you, though, I'm not much of a dancer."

"I'll work with it," Natter promised. She let him arrange his hands on her shoulder and hip, and then established the rhythm of a waltz as they began to move around the room. "Just try to look like you're leading, and you'll do fine."

"That's what Peggy used to say to me," said Steve.

Natter's eyebrows rose. "Peggy?"

"My boss," Steve explained. "We used to work together during the war. She sometimes didn't think much of my leadership skills." As he spoke, however, he mentally reviewed what he'd said and realized there was more than one way to take it – the battlefield hadn't been the only place where Peggy liked to take charge. "Oh," he said, smiling in embarrassment as his cheeks warmed. "Did you think that was a double entendre?"

"I did, actually," said Natter with a wry smile. "I never would have thought I'd get to make Captain America blush!"

Steve laughed awkwardly – the comment only made him blush harder. "No, Peggy's _just_ my boss," he said. "After the time I skipped, she's forty years older than me now." And in the absence of a time machine, there was nothing to be done about that.

"So she wasn't _always_ just your boss," Natter observed.

"Um." Steve groped for a subject change. "Is Ambassador Barnum always like that?" he asked. "This is the first time I've met the guy." Politicians were another thing that didn't seem to have changed much since the forties. They still thought they could get away with anything.

The corners of Natter's lips twitched, but she accepted the new topic gracefully. "He's worst when he's drunk," she said. "I wasn't actually going to come tonight, but... uh..." she ducked her head, and Steve suspected that under her makeup, _she_ was now taking a turn to blush. "I heard you'd been invited, and I was hoping I'd get to meet you. Or at least catch a glimpse of you."

"Well, I hope I live up to your expectations," said Steve.

"And then some," Natter assured him. "Now I can tell my friends that I got to dance with Captain America – and he wasn't actually half-bad, despite his worries."

"Better than I am at flirting," Steve said. That had to be where she'd thought he was going with _that's what Peggy used to say to me_. Good thing Fury hadn't heard him say that, or he'd never be allowed to forget it.

"You just need practice," Eva said.

Then they heard the explosion.

Steve had been through far worse by way of explosions. This one didn't shake the ground, and nobody _saw_ it, but a tremendous thundering _bag_ rolled through the room, rattling the wine glasses on the side tables and echoing off the streets and buildings outside. On pure instinct, Steve grabbed Eva and threw her to the ground with himself on top to shield the civilian with his body. People stopped talking, stopped dancing, and looked around in confusion, trying to figure out where the noise and vibration were coming from – and what on earth Captain America and his dance partner were doing on the floor.

"Sorry," Steve mumbled. He quickly got up again, and helped Eva to do the same.

"Quite all right," she replied, though visibly worried. "What was that?"

" _Her! I sør!_ " somebody shouted, pointing out a window.

The crowd moved towards the south-facing side of the room to look. Steve spotted the feathered brim of Fury's pirate hat and went to join him – Eva looped her arm through his and went along. The two of them were tall enough to see over most of the heads, but there was very little to see.

It was evening. The sky outside was still partially lit pink and orange by the last glow of sunset, and on the horizon a thin column of smoke could be seen silhouetted against that afterglow before fading into the darkness overhead. Whatever had happened had been a very long way off, Steve observed, which meant that in order to be heard and felt in Oslo, it must have been extremely violent.

"I gotta go," said Steve.

"Yes. I see," Eva nodded.

"Fury!" Steve waved his friend to join him. "We gotta go!"

Their driver, a SHIELD employee himself, brought their car back to the door, and the two men were already getting out of the more unwieldy parts of their costumes as they climbed into it. Steve had shrugged out of his vest and pulled his bolo over his head, and Fury had removed his hat and was squirming out of his frock coat, which was a little too small.

"Did you get her number?" Fury asked, as he shut the car door after himself.

"Who? Eva? I only just _met_ her," said Steve. He nodded to the driver, who put the car in gear and set off. The man didn't need to be told where Steve Rogers wanted to go.

"That's why you get her number," Fury replied, "so you can meet her _again_ and get to know her better. I got Snow White's!" He held up a napkin. " _And_ one from the girl in the banana costume!"

Steve shook his head and opened the secret compartment in the seat of the car to pull out his black SHIELD fatigues. Not for for the first time, or probably even the hundredth, he wished Peggy would hurry up and sort things out with the comic book company that had apparently copyrighted his uniform. He missed it. "Here," he said, handing the first pile of clothing to Fury, and then removed his vibranium shield from the bottom of the compartment. "Do we have any information on the explosion?" he asked the driver.

"On the local radio they're saying it happened in Tønsberg," the man replied. "They don't know yet what caused it – possibly a ship explosion. There may have been dangerous goods in the harbour there."

"Tønsberg... isn't that way down at the mouth of the fjord" asked Fury.

"About sixty miles from Oslo, yes," the driver agreed.

Fury frowned, probably trying to work out in his head just how powerful the blast must have been. Steve's immediate thought, however, was of something else entirely.

"Tønsberg?" he asked. "You're sure?"

"That's what the radio keeps saying," said the driver. "It's accurate as far as the reporters know."

"What's in Tønsberg?" asked Fury, but then he remembered. "That's where HYDRA found it." He didn't need to specify what _it_ was – not to Steve, anyway. They both knew exactly what HYDRA had found in Tønsberg in 1942.

"Yeah." Steve nodded, pulling on his black jacket over his cowboy shirt. There _was_ a white stripe-and-star logo on the pocket, but that was as close as SHIELD wanted to come to his logo.

"But there's nothing there now," Fury said. "We've got the thing in storage."

"You asked what's in Tønsberg," said Steve. "That's what's in Tønsberg." He didn't like coincidences, but he would reserve judgment until he saw exactly what had happened. The tesseract had caused a war once. Steve wasn't going to let it cause another one.

"You're still wearing your eyepatch," he told Fury.

"Am I?" Fury pulled the last piece of his pirate costume off. "Huh, didn't notice."

* * *

The drive from Oslo to Tønsberg was about an hour – by speeding the whole way, their driver made it as far as Holmestrand in only forty minutes, but there they found themselves up against an unexpected obstacle: thousands of people in the Vestfold area, upon having their homes shaken by a massive explosion, had sensibly decided to leave. The police were controlling this exodus as best they could while also getting emergency vehicles _into_ the area, but the fleeing population had resorted to driving on _both_ sides of the road and the result was chaos. Eventually, Steve and Fury's driver was forced to pull over.

"Now what?" asked Fury, as the driver made a call on his CB radio. "We can't _walk_ to Tønsberg. It's twenty miles."

Steve climbed out of the car and stood there, staring at the river of red and white lights that represented gridlock all the way to the horizon. Darkness had fallen by now, and the rising smoke was now lit from below, fiery red-orange against the night-time sky. Whatever had happened, the emergency wasn't over. Walking would take hours and by the time they arrived, it might be too late to help – but people must be hurt and dying under that cloud of smoke. Steve couldn't possibly just sit here.

He opened the car door again and leaned in to talk to the driver, who had the radio to his ear. "Get me the American embassy," Steve said. "They'll be able to put us in touch with SHIELD."

The driver held out the receiver. "Actually," he said, "they're already on the line. Madame Director wants to talk to you."

Fury snorted. "Boy, does she know you," he said.

Steve grabbed the radio. "Peggy?" he asked.

"Oh, good," her voice replied, crackling with interference. "I was afraid you'd already decided to walk."

"Not _quite_ yet," said Steve. Do you know what's happened?"

"I've been on the line to the European Seismological Commission," Peggy said. "They believe there's been a volcanic eruption. I _could_ tell you," she went on, "that SHIELD is not responsible for Norway, and I _could_ tell you that a volcano is a _natural_ disaster while we specialize in the _unnatural_ kind. But I'm well aware that I'd be talking to a brick wall, so instead I'm sending you a helicopter and some fire proximity suits I borrowed from a vulcanology project in Sicily."

Steve had to smile. "You _do_ know me," he observed.

Peggy wasn't amused. "I know you well enough to remind you to _use_ the damn suits, Steve. You seem to think you're indestructible, but even you can't just walk into a live volcano."

"I'll keep that in mind," Steve said. "Thanks, Peg."

"Don't think of mentioning it," Peggy said, all airy sarcasm. "Just stay safe and rescue as many civilians as you can. As long as you don't get anybody killed, it probably won't become an international incident."

"Copy that," Steve nodded. "Over and out."

"What did she say?" asked Fury, as Steve handed the radio back to the driver.

"She's sending us a helicopter," said Steve.

Fury snorted. "Blatant favouritism! Anybody else would get dragged home by the ear, but she gives you a _helicopter_!"

"Yeah, I know that's the only reason you hang out with me," said Steve.

"Damn right," Fury agreed. "Best way to stay on the old lady's good side."

The helicopter with the SHIELD logo on the side arrived about twenty minutes later. On board were two aluminized fire suits with breathing apparatus. When Steve checked the labels, he found that they were rated to one thousand degrees Celsius for short durations. That would be more than enough. He and Fury wouldn't be going anywhere nearly that hot, for the simple reason that there wouldn't be anybody alive in such an environment, but volcanoes were unpredictable and it was best to be cautious.

Once in the air, they were able to look down and see the roads below, clearly picked out in the darkness as row upon row of car headlights. It looked like a glowing river, but one that crawled at a snail's pace instead of flowing. As they got closer to the epicenter of the eruption, Steve began to smell the volcanic gases. There was an undertone of smoke and stone, but the nearer they got, the more the odor was overpoweringly of rotten eggs from sulfurous gases. Soon he, Fury, and the pilot all had to turn on their oxygen systems to drown out the choking fumes.

Although Steve expected to see a volcanic cone among the mountains, the landscape instead sloped smoothly down towards the fjord. The city of Tønsberg occupied a blunt little peninsula that almost joined Nøtterøy Island in the sound, and it was on the east side of peninsula that Steve finally spotted the crater – a circle of fire about a hundred yards wide. Its far edge jutted out into the waters of the fjord, and the 'smoke' billowing up was mostly steam, as cold sea water met molten rock.

A dark skin of congealed stone had formed on the surface of the crater, but this was shifting and cracking as the liquid moved underneath it, and the fissures that formed glowed white-hot, leaving streaks in Steve's vision after he closed his eyes. Every so often a blob of magma would bubble over and drop into the sea, and a new cloud of hissing steam would come up. Trees and houses all around had burned and reduced to ash already... the fire was still burning ferociously further out.

There wasn't going to be anybody alive within a mile of that, Steve thought. The best chance for survivors was on the other side of the channel. Only one major bridge connected mainland Tønsberg with Teie on the Island. Survivors there would have to go far south to find another way off, and half the island seemed to be on fire.

"There's open ground over by the port warehouses!" the pilot announced, shouting over the rotor noise. "I'll put you down there!"

"Sounds good!" Steve agreed.

They passed to the west of the crater, and as they did Steve realized it formed a nearly-perfect circle. Was that natural, he wondered? Usually any shape that regular would have to be man-made. Then again, liquids did tend to form circles – he remembered the drops of orange juice on the space shuttle that had, in the absence of gravity, molded themselves into spheres. Lava could probably destroy just about anything that tried to contain it, so maybe it _would_ form a circular crater all by itself.

The warehouses, on the other side of the channel from the crater, had all burned to the ground, and the vehicles and equipment that surrounded them were melted, blackened, and twisted. The pilot let Steve and Fury down by rope and together they headed south, into the inferno that had once been a suburb.

In the hours that followed, they climbed over wreckage and ducked under fallen trees and utility poles. Survivors could be found trapped in collapsed buildings, or holed up in water tanks and concrete culverts where they'd taken refuge from the heat. There were two children in a car – their parents had gone back into the house for the dogs, they said, and had never come out again. Employees at a bank had taken shelter in the vault and several had died of heat exhaustion before Steve and Fury found them. Whenever somebody turned up alive, one of the men would call for rescue workers to airlift them to the mainland. Most of those they found were already dead, while others died soon after rescue. The air was laden with hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide.

It took hours, but eventually fire trucks made it through the traffic jam and began pumping water out of the fjords to put out the remaining fires. Finally, with dawn on the horizon, and the crater slowly cooling, Steve had to admit that he was too exhausted to continue. The helicopter arrived to take them back to Oslo for a bath and sleep. Once they were on board, Fury pulled the helmet off his proximity suit, tipped his head back, and was snoring within seconds.

The sight made Steve feel a little guilty. He'd forgotten, as he often had during the war, that he was no longer a 'normal' human being, that he had strength and stamina others didn't. After a childhood of being the one who couldn't keep up, something in Steve still assumed that anything he could do, others could do just as easily. It was surprising how often they wore themselves out trying. Bucky had been like that... of all the Howling Commandos, he was the one who'd tried hardest, and in the end it had killed him.

Steve shook his head. He had to stop thinking about the past. The past couldn't be changed. He had to live in the present.

When they arrived at the hotel, Fury woke up just long enough to stagger into their room and collapse on the nearer of the two queen-sized beds. Steve wanted to sleep, too, but he knew if he went to bed without eating something, he'd wake up ravenously hungry and that wasn't any fun. He called for room service to bring him an early breakfast, and then took a quick shower while he waited for them.

He was out of the shower and toweling his hair – which had grown, in the past few months, into something closer to the styles people wore in the 1980s – when he noticed the envelope lying on the floor. It appeared to have been slipped under the door at some point. Had it been there when he and Fury arrived and they just hadn't noticed it? Or had it appeared while Steve was in the shower? He picked it up and opened it.

Inside was a business card bearing the name Helmut Baumhauer and a short German text describing him as a modeling and acting agent. Below was an address in Mainz and a phone and fax number. Was this another job offer? Steve turned it over to see if there were anything on the back.

There was: in tiny writing with a green pen were the words, in English, _my agent. He can get you in touch with me anytime. Eva._

Steve slowly smiled and slipped the card into a pocket on his suitcase. He wasn't sure he would actually _call_ Eva Natter, but the invitation was flattering – he'd gotten similar ones from all sorts of women during the war, but would never have had the time to follow them up even if he _hadn't_ been in love with Peggy. Now he was unattached and much less busy, and if nothing else, he would at least keep the card around.

As he sat down to his breakfast, with Fury snoring in the background, it occurred to Steve to wonder what Peggy would think of him being courted by a European supermodel. He remembered her reaction when she'd caught that blonde kissing him at the SSR, but she wasn't likely to do that again. That had been Peggy Carter in her twenties, young and in love and idealistic. The Peggy carter in her sixties, a married grandmother with a lot more experience of the world, would be more likely to remind Steve that he knew nothing about women. She'd probably even offer him advice how to avoid making a fool of himself this time.

But she would want him to be happy, wouldn't she? After all, Peggy had moved on, and she wanted Steve to do the same. Maybe he _would_ call Eva when he got back to the States. It certainly couldn't hurt to give it a try.


	2. Chapter 2: Old Girlfriends

Two days later they arrived back in the States, and Steve got to see Peggy again – she was there waiting for them at the airstrip, and greeted Steve with a hug. He was getting used to how she felt when he hugged her, he realized – it used to be a surprise every time, when he found himself holding this thin old woman instead of the tough and vivacious young one he remembered. Now, after seven months, it was finally starting to seem normal.

"You can't go a week without needless heroics, can you?" she asked as she let him go, but her voice was kinder than it was stern. "Between this and the radiation at Dvenadstat, I'm convinced you're out to cook poor Nick alive."

"He's still pink in the middle," Steve replied. "Gotta wait until the juices run clear." He glanced over his shoulder at their charter plane. Nick had fallen asleep halfway home, and had not awakened when they landed – he was probably still in there, snoozing in his seat. Somebody would get him up. Steve put an arm around Peggy and began walking with her towards the lot by the hangar, where there would be a car waiting for them. He'd bought himself a new motorcycle, but this wasn't good weather for that. Despite the clear blue sky over New York State, there was a biting breeze in the November air.

"Peggy," Steve said, as they crossed the tarmac. "Do you remember where in Tønsberg HYDRA found the tesseract?"

She didn't need to think about it. "St. Sebastian's," she replied at once. "It's a little stone church in the eastern part of the city, with a big tree next to it... or I suppose it _was_." She looked sad to realize the site must be gone. "It was built on top of an older Pagan temple. Supposedly there was a sacred tree there that the Vikings used to worship."

"Where, exactly?" Steve asked. The question of a link had been preying on his mind all through the long transatlantic flight. He needed an answer.

"I'll show you when we get back to the city," she promised. "I've got some satellite images there."

Back in her office at SHIELD HQ on Park Avenue, Agent Pearce brought Peggy a manila envelope full of photographs and spread them out on her desk – pictures of Tønsberg before the eruption, nestled in a bend in the fjord, and then pictures of it after, blackened and destroyed. Peggy consulted those, then looked at a paper map, and finally put her finger on a spot. "I would say right there," she said. "It's supposed to have been one of the oldest Christian sites in Norway, if I remember correctly."

Steve wondered if Peggy had ever visited the church, just to see where the damn cube had come from. He'd had a vague idea that he ought to do that, himself, but it would never happen now, would it? "I want to see something," he said, moving the photographs around. He couldn't use the buildings to match them up, and the eruption had altered many of the landforms, but the shape of Nøtterøy Island was basically the same. Eventually, he located the site of the church in the destroyed landscape – and sighed with relief.

He'd been afraid he would find the church in the exact center of the crater, but instead it was halfway to the rim. The center was a few blocks north of it, located in what had once been somebody's back yard. After feeling like he'd been holding his breath all day, Steve could finally exhale.

"The tesseract is safe, Steve," Peggy said gently. "I don't think it can do any damage in Norway from where it is."

"Yeah, I guess not," said Steve. It was still an odd coincidence, though.

"Where is it?" asked Agent Pearce, which made Steve jump. Pearce hadn't said a word while Steve and Peggy examined the photographs, and Steve had almost forgotten he was there.

"Safe," Peggy repeated firmly.

That wasn't the answer Pearce wanted. "Madame Director," he began, "the UN..."

" _Safe_ ," said Peggy for the third time.

"Even _I_ don't know where she keeps it," Steve said.

" _Nobody_ knows where I keep it, Alex," Peggy said. "There are people who know it's in storage but they don't know where. There are people who know they're guarding something important but not what it is. I'm the only one who knows both what and where and it's going to _stay_ that way. One person can keep a secret. Once two people know, it's not a secret anymore."

Pearce nodded, but he looked unhappy.

"It's not that she doesn't trust you, Agent Pearce," Steve said.

"I don't trust _anybody_ ," Peggy said firmly. "I can't afford to, and it was a hard-won lesson, believe me." She sighed heavily. "Besides, what would the UN do if I _told_ them?"

"I... I don't know," Pearce admitted. "It's just, for my own peace of mind..."

"For your own peace of mind, you're better off not knowing," said Steve. If _he'd_ known where the awful thing was, _his_ urge would have been to destroy it. To drop it into the deepest part of the ocean, or into a volcano, or launch it into space. To _get rid of it_. The problem with that was that it had already been fished out of the sea once, a volcano might easily spit it out again, and they had no idea if some piece of the Red Skull's consciousness might still be waiting for them in the Earth's ionosphere. Like it or not, humanity was stuck with this dangerous object, and there was nobody on the planet Steve would rather trust it with than Peggy Carter.

Besides, there was no arguing with Peggy once she'd made up her mind, and Pearce knew that – Steve saw him reluctantly nod and begin gathering up the photographs again.

"I'd better go see if anybody woke up Fury, or if he's still on the plane," Steve said. "I'll see you tomorrow, Peg."

"Good night, Steve," Peggy said.

* * *

Nick Fury was indeed awake, although he had a big mug of coffee on his desk and was yawning as he sat filling out reports in the office the two men shared. Steve had an awkward question for _him_ , too, and wasn't sure how to bring up the subject delicately. As it happened, however, Fury himself spared him the trouble – when Steve walked in, Fury sat up and looked him right in the eye, and Steve realized he hadn't been as careful about his packing as he ought to have been.

"Where'd you get this?" Fury asked, holding up the business card Eva had left.

"Somebody put it under the door in our hotel room." Steve went to take it from him.

Fury held it out of reach. "You're going to call her, right?" he asked. "I've already called Snow White."

"Does she have an actual name?" Steve's eyebrows rose. When had Fury had _time_ to call back women?

"Not that she's told me yet – and if she doesn't wanna tell me, then I don't wanna know." Fury grinned. "Now, you're gonna call Eva Natter, right?"

"I don't know," Steve admitted. He left Fury with the card and opened a filing cabinet to get the papers he'd need for his own report on the Tønsberg Incident – Peggy had insisted they both file one, probably in the hope of discouraging 'needless heroics' by associating them with paperwork. Or as revenge for the amount of red tape Steve's 'heroics' had generated for _her_ during the war.

"Uh-huh," said Fury. "So if I understand this: you met a German supermodel. She's drop-dead gorgeous and probably filthy rich as well. You saved her from a drunk politician squeezing her ass, she took the trouble to track you down and give you her phone number when you were too chicken to ask... and you _don't know_ if you're going to call her?"

Steve had his back to Fury, but he could imagine the look on the man's face – clearly, he thought Steve was a fool. Maybe he was right. "She's older than me," Steve said. People seemed to think that was weird in _any_ decade.

"Depends on how you look at it," Fury replied. "She's no more than thirty-five. Technically, _you're_ old enough to be her father. Besides, older women have experience. They know what they're doing, while I'm pretty sure _you_ don't have a clue."

Steve could feel his face heat up. Fury was right – Peggy, who'd been previously engaged, had known a heck of a lot more about love, in all senses of the word, than Steve himself, and had taught him a great deal. "That's not the point!" he said, concentrating on flipping through folders so Fury wouldn't see him blush. "I haven't decided if I _want_ to call her. I'm no good at talking to women."

"Then you need practice," Fury said. "She already likes you, so you've got a head start. Just call her and say you had fun the other night and you'd like to get to know her better."

"How do I _put_ it, though?" asked Steve.

Fury snorted. "What do you mean, how do you put it? You _talk_ to her. There's no big secret for how to talk to women. They're just people." He picked up the phone on the desk and put it down on top of the filing cabinet. It made a 'ding' sound as the impact jostled the bell. "Call her," Fury ordered. "Call her right now."

Steve looked up at the telephone. "But..."

"Look, you're attracted to her, right?"

"Yeah, but..."

"And you enjoyed her company," Fury went on.

"For maybe twenty minutes!" Steve protested.

"One phone call is not a contract!" Fury said. "You're not marrying her – you're arranging to have a cup of coffee and a talk sometime and see if you still like one another. It's a process, okay?" He held out the receiver. "Call her."

"Now?" asked Steve.

"If you don't do it while I'm watching, you won't do it," said Fury.

He was probably right – again. Steve took the handset and business card, and began dialing the number. One of the things that still did feel odd to him in the 1980's was the way phones dialed and connected without an operator. It made the process seem so impersonal. As he listened to the phone ring, he mentally rehearsed ideas what he might say.

"Uh... do you mind?" he asked Fury. He didn't want anybody breathing down his neck while he did this.

Fury hesitated a moment, then went to go wait in the hall.

The phone picked up. " _Hallo, Baumhauer_ ," said the voice.

Steve took a deep breath. "Hello. Can I speak to Miss Natter, please? This is..." he paused. He couldn't say _Steve_ because Herr Baumhauer would probably have no idea who that was, but he definitely wasn't going to introduce himself as _Captain America_. "This is Captain Rogers."

"Oh, yes, Frauline Natter was hoping you would call," said Baumhauer. "One moment please, I will put you on hold."

Tinny music began to play. Steve waited nervously for what seemed like a terribly long time, before finally hearing a female voice say, "hello?"

"Hello, Miss Natter, this is Captain Rogers," he said.

"Why, Captain," said Eva. "Ernst did say it would be a pleasant surprise."

Steve glanced at the door. If he walked out of here without getting the asking done, Fury would never let him forget it. "I just wanted to say," he told her, feeling very awkward indeed, "that I'm sorry I had to run off the other night, and, uh, if you wanted to get together sometime and, um, have a drink or something..."

"Captain, I would be delighted," she said. "I'm going to be in New York at the end of the month, in fact, for a photoshoot in Central Park. I'm sure I could make time to see you."

"That's great," said Steve, and then wondered... now what? He hadn't thought this far ahead. He'd gone over ways to ask her but hadn't thought of how to respond when she said yes or no – especially yes. "When do you mean by 'the end of the month'?" he asked. "Because I've got some commitments around Thanksgiving." He'd been asked to no less than three different dinners, and was just lucky they were all on different days.

"When is Thanksgiving?" she asked.

"Oh... the twenty-seventh, I think," said Steve. If today was the fourth, and a Tuesday... he did some mental math. "Yeah, the twenty-seventh."

"I'll be arriving on Saturday the twenty-ninth," she said.

"All right. I can't meet you when you arrive, because I'll be volunteering at a charity dinner in Harlem," Steve said, "but I'll give you my phone number. You can call me and we'll arrange something. I have one of those answering machines." Those were very convenient – a machine that could answer the phone and record a message even when nobody was home. Apparently they'd been around since the late 1940's, but had only recently become popular.

"Then I'll do that," Eva said. Steve could hear the smile in her voice.

"I have to warn you," he said. "It's been ages since I had a date." He and Peggy had never really gotten the chance to _date_ like most people did. Their relationship had begun and blossomed in an environment of work. Going dancing had been a special treat, saved for the end of the war.

"I can tell," said Eva kindly. "Don't worry. You turned out to be a perfectly good dancer. I'm sure you'll be a fine date, as well."

Once Steve and Eva said their goodbyes and hung up the phone, Steve opened the door to let Fury back into the office. The man was grinning like a jack-o-lantern as he stepped inside.

"So I figure you had your ear to the door the whole time," said Steve.

"Give me some credit, Rogers," said Fury. "I'm a spy – if I want to listen in on your phone conversations I can do a hell of a lot better than an ear to the door." He clapped Steve on the shoulder. "Congratulations, you're now the envy of half the men in Europe. You've got a date with Eva Natter!"

* * *

Fury's summation of the situation wasn't quite true, of course. Steve only _potentially_ had a date with Eva, not the date itself, and before he could even ask for the date he had a very busy long weekend to get through.

First, on Thursday the twenty-seventh, was thanksgiving dinner with the Dugan family: Peggy and Dum-Dum and their children. Angela brought her boyfriend from Baltimore, and Stephen his wife and two daughters. Steve ate four helpings, much to the astonishment of the younger generations, and after dinner Dum-Dum pulled out a hidden bottle of his favourite brew, and he, Steve, and Peggy told war stories long into the night.

On Saturday, as he'd already told Eva, Steve would be joining Paul and Darlene Wilson at the dinner they were hosting for the congregation at their church. First, however, he had a second family dinner on Friday, when he was expected at the Stark family's penthouse. When he rang the bell, it was answered not by Jarvis or Maria, as he'd expected, but by Obadiah Stane.

"Rogers!" the man said cheerfully. "Come in, come in! We're expecting you!"

"Thanks," said Steve. "I brought a pie." Peggy had given him a sweet potato pie to take home.

"Wonderful." Stane ushered him inside with a hand on his back. "Zeke!" he called. "Take this to Maria in the kitchen, would you?"

Stane's six-year-old son, Ezekiel, came to grab the pie and run off with it, while Stane escorted Steve down the hall to the study. On the way past Steve peeked into the kitchen, and found Jarvis and Anna busy finishing the meal preparations with Maria Stark's help. Maria took the pie from Zeke and set it on the counter, then patted the boy on the head and said something to him in Italian.

Steve would have gone into the kitchen to help, but Stand took him into the study instead, and got a decanter down from the shelf.

"Drink?" he asked.

"No, thank you," Steve replied. "Not before dinner." He looked around the room, and could feel his spirits already sinking. This had been Howard's particular nook in the home, full of his favourite books and magazines, smelling of his expensive liquor and imported cigars. The painting above the roll-top desk was a Chagall that Howard had bought from the artist personally. The room always felt as if Howard were about to walk back into it and toss his blazer over the back of the big rolling chair, and renewed the pain of knowing that he never would.

So it was as much for an excuse to leave as it was because he'd noticed an absence that Steve asked, "where's Tony?"

"Spare bedroom," Stane replied, pouring a drink for himself. "His cardboard rockets have outgrown his own." There was a distinct note of disapproval in his voice, an indication that he considered Tony's models a frivolity.

"I'm just gonna go talk to him for a moment." Steve headed for the French doors of the study. "I'll be right back."

When Steve had first been unfrozen in April, he'd stayed with the Stark family for a couple of months. The spare room Tony was sitting in had been Steve's during that time, but he'd never impressed his personality on it the way Howard had on the study. Tony hadn't, either – but he _had_ filled the room with bits and pieces of a complex cardboard and popsicle-stick construction that looked something like a suit of armor. Most of it was standing at the end of the bed, but other bits were scattered around the bed, desk, and dresser, and Tony was holding what appeared to be a gauntlet as he sat at the end of the bed, his shoulders hunched in a sulk.

"Tony?" Steve asked, rapping on the door frame.

Tony jumped and turned around as if ready to shout, but relaxed when he saw Steve. "Oh. It's just you," he said, relieved.

"What, did you mistake me for somebody important?" Steve moved some pieces of cardboard over and sat down next to him. "Something wrong?"

Tony lowered his head again. "They didn't tell you?"

"I just got here," said Steve. "The only thing anybody's told me is where to put the pie." He could imagine any number of awful possibilities, though. Maybe somebody else had died, or was dying. Maybe something had gone wrong at school, and Tony's degree was being revoked. It had been over a month since Steve had talked to Tony and that was more than enough time for all sorts of terrible things to have happened – and even then, he was _still_ surprised by the boy's answer.

"Mom and Obi are getting married," Tony told him. "He asked her yesterday, and she said yes. Him and Zeke are moving in after Christmas."

Steve had no idea how to respond to that, so he just sat silently for a few moments before saying, "I see." He could tell that Tony was upset... but was Maria re-marrying really a bad thing? Steve wasn't sure he _liked_ Obadiah Stane, but he couldn't say the man had been anything but attentive and kind towards Maria and Tony both in the months since Howard's death. He would probably fill the roles of husband and father better than Howard ever had, even if Steve did suspect – as Tony doubtless did, too – that he was mostly after the family's money.

"It's barely been six months," Tony complained. "I feel like Hamlet."

"Hamlet's mother only waited _one_ month," Steve said.

"Whatever. You get the idea."

Steve nodded, but he wasn't sure he could actually help Tony with this. Sorting out the family would be a job for Tony, Maria, and Stane themselves, and the adults probably wouldn't like Steve interfering in it. He again sought a means of escape, and settled on a subject change. "What's this?" he asked, pointing to the half-finished model. "I thought you were still working on the space shuttle."

"I got bored," said Tony – he seemed glad to have something else to talk about, too. "This is related, though – it's a self-contained spacesuit. It's got all the cooling and propulsion units built in so you don't have to put it on in layers, and should give the astronauts much better control over their own movement. There's an onboard computer, too." He got up and pulled a piece off the back of the model, turning it over. "That'll keep track of where the astronaut and the shuttle are, so if a tether breaks the thrusters can automatically take you back to the airlock. I just have to figure out how to _power_ it." Tony set the piece down on his desk. "I got my reactor working, too. You might have read about that."

"I did," Steve agreed. It had been on the cover of _Time_ magazine – _Tony Stark: MIT's Boy Astronaut and the Future of Energy_.

"If I could make the fusion reactor _smaller_..." Tony bit his lip, then shrugged. "If you wanna see the stuff I'm doing for the shuttle, that's in my room. Come on."

Steve followed him. While Tony was away at school, his model collection was carefully stored in cardboard boxes with lots of bubble wrap. Now it was out and arranged over every surface. There were vehicles, rockets, buildings, and things Steve couldn't begin to identify, all carefully put together out of white card and rubber cement.

"The new shuttle they're gonna be building to replace _Odyssey_ is called _Endurance_ ," said Tony. "Dr. Williams doesn't want to use my suggestions because he says they can't have a shuttle whose parts aren't interchangeable with the others, so I've been coming up with a five-year plan to upgrade the whole fleet." He opened a drawer and started shuffling through notebooks.

"Doesn't it take forever to build all this?" Steve asked.

"I work better in three dimensions," Tony replied. He chose a particular book and flipped through the pages to one marked with a post-it note. "Translating from an idea to a drawing and then having somebody _else_ translate it back into an object wastes time and you can miss things. Gotta build models."

"Isn't there a better way to do it?" Steve asked. This seemed like an awful lot of paper. He kept hearing about deforestation and recycling.

"Probably," Tony said. Having found what he was looking for, he turned around to face Steve again – then shouted in surprise at something behind him. Steve turned to look, and nearly cried out, himself. Behind Tony's bedroom door, whether neither of them had noticed her when they walked in, was a woman holding a small child.

Not just any woman, either – she was wearing a long black wig and a pair of cats-eye glasses, but the face was one Steve would have recognized anywhere. It was Konstantina Fyodorova, the Russian agent who'd been exposed at SHIELD in May.

"Is everything okay down there?" Maria Stark's voice called.

"Everything's fine! Tony just stubbed his toe!" Steve shut the bedroom door and planted himself in front of Fyodorova, not sure if he wanted to threaten her or not. She must have a _reason_ for reappearing, but it wouldn't necessarily be a reason he approved of. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"Waiting for you," she replied, as if this were obvious.

"Who is that?" asked Tony, pointing to the child in her arms.

Fyodorova set the little girl down on Tony's bed – the child was thin and pale, with wide blue eyes and dark red curls cut very short. "This is Natalia. I have reason to believe she's the last surviving descendant of the Tsar, which means a lot of people's lives would be less complicated without her." She turned away from the child to face Steve. "I need your help."

"Why?" he asked. "When you ran away, we assumed you went back to the Soviet Union."

"I did," Fyodorova replied with a curt nod. "But thanks to Madame Director, I'm the FBI's most wanted. My face is up in every post office in North America. When I got back, my employers told me that I was _of no further use to the Red Room_." She raised a hand to her temple with the index finger extended, and mimed firing a gun. "Nobody wants a spy everybody can recognize."

"So you escaped," said Steve.

"Anybody who thinks it's difficult to get _into_ the Iron Curtain has never had to try and get _out_ ," she said grimly.

"Hey!" Tony took one of his model parts away from the little girl. "Don't put that in your mouth!"

"How did you do it?" asked Steve.

"I walked," Fyodorova replied, as if it were the most obvious possible solution. "I waited for the sea ice to freeze, and then I walked from Lavrentiya to Tin City."

Steve tried to picture the geography of the Bering Strait. "That's got to be a hundred miles," he protested. "In the arctic? With a toddler?"

"Yes," said Fyodorova. "Now, like I said, I need you to look into something for me. There's something weird going on in the arctic, and I'm pretty sure it's not your government or mine that's doing it."

That did sound worrying, but it was also extremely vague and Steve wasn't going to just trust this woman blindly. She'd been of some help in the mess with Dvenadstat and the _Odyssey_ , but that didn't mean she was telling the truth now. "Why should I help you, rather than just turning you over to Peggy?" he demanded.

She smiled. "Two reasons." She held up two fingers. "One, because you and I both agree that we need to maintain the balance. Nobody wins if the world dissolves in a nuclear holocaust. And two," the smile broadened as she paused for effect. "Because I have information you want. Both of you."

Tony was gathering his things and tossing them into boxes where Natalia's greedy fingers couldn't get at them. "Yeah?" he asked, wrapping a bunch of parts up in a towel. "Like what?"

" _Zima_ ," said Fyodorova. "You boys help me save the world, and I can put a face behind the gun that killed Howard Stark."

The parts fell out of Tony's hands onto the floor, and he stood wide-eyed for a moment before bending to pick them up again. Steve swallowed. He might not be about to trust Fyodorova, but he knew he couldn't afford to dismiss her, either. And there was no way he could turn down a chance to find Howard's murderer.

"I have some questions," said Steve, holding up a finger.

"Captain Rogers!" Jarvis' voice called from down the hall. "Dinner is served!"

"We're coming!" Steve shouted back, and then looked back at Fyodorova. "If you're still here after we eat, we can talk about this."

"I'll wait," she promised.

"Don't let the kid eat my stuff," Tony ordered her.

"Bring me something else she can eat, and I'll consider it," said Fyodorova.

Steve and Tony were both very careful to look casual as they went to join the rest of the family in the dining room. There were already plates on the table, and Zeke was sitting in his chair, comically eager with knife and fork already in his hand.

"Are you all right, Tony?" Maria asked with a quiet smile.

"Am I? Oh. Yes," Tony said, remembering Steve's lie about his toe. He hobbled a little as he sat down. "I'm fine. Just a flesh wound." He looked at the places set, puzzled. "Where are Jarvis and Anna?" There were only five plates on the table.

"They just left," said Stane. "They'll be having their own supper at their new place. This is 1986," he added. "Nobody has their servants _live_ with them anymore." He pulled out a chair for Maria, and as she sat down, he took her hand and kissed it, which made Tony visibly flinch.

"It had become such a habit," Maria said, "I never realized how terribly old-fashioned it was. They moved two weeks ago – I'm sure they appreciate the privacy."

"And it gives _us_ more space if we want to have company," Stane agreed, sitting down.

Steve looked across the table at Tony, sitting next to his mother, and found him wearing the expression of a kid who was imagining five ways a despised authority figure could die in the next couple of minutes. Steve knew that face well – he'd seen it on Bucky when his father had been drunk and shouting, and in the mirror when his own childhood teachers had been unfair to him. And that was the moment when Steve realized that Thanksgiving with the Starks was not going to be nearly as enjoyable as it had been with the Dugans.


	3. Chapter 3: Thanksgiving Dinners

Steve couldn't help but notice that Tony made a point of sitting next to his mother so that Stane could not do so, but Stane himself didn't seem to mind. He quietly took what would have been Howard's seat at the head of the table. Steve sat down across from Tony, leaving the final seat, next to him, for Zeke.

"Anyway," Stane went on, still talking about the absence of the Jarvises, "with me, Zeke, and Captain Rogers all here, this room would be pretty crowded."

"What's wrong with that?" asked Tony. "It's Thanksgiving. We're supposed to all get together."

Stane opened a bottle of red wine. "So let's enjoy the family we have, rather than missing the one we don't," he said. "And there's nothing I enjoy more than a good old-fashioned American turkey dinner!"

He might not have replied to what Tony had _said_ , but Stane was looking right at the young man as he said this, and that told Steve quite a bit. It told him, for example, that Thanksgiving dinner with the Stark family had normally included some of Anna Jarvis' Hungarian cooking.

"Each person has his preference," Maria said sharply, before Tony could respond. "But I think this is a dinner we will all enjoy." She gestured to the steaming turkey in the middle of the table. It did smell wonderful.

Tony scowled. "Yeah," he said, and reached to grab a roll from the basket. Stane, however, put out a hand to stop him.

"I think we should say grace," Stane said.

He and Tony locked eyes for a moment, and Steve bit his lip. He'd spent enough time in the Stark household to know that it was emphatically _not_ a religious place. Maria was Catholic, but she kept that private, and it had not been part of Tony's education. Howard had always been a staunch atheist despite his strongly Jewish upbringing, and Tony followed his father in that. Stane was suggesting grace as a direct assertion of authority, and Tony knew that.

"Dad always said there's no point in sitting around talking while dinner gets cold," said Tony.

"Grace doesn't take long, _Tonino_ ," Maria told him.

Tony rolled his eyes. "Mom! Don't call me that. I'm not six years old anymore!"

Steve glanced down at Zeke, but found the child unconcernedly playing with his napkin, as if this sort of thing went on all the time. In order to head off an argument, Steve cleared his throat.

"For what we are about to receive," he said, rattling off the old formula as quickly as he could, "may the Lord make us truly thankful, Amen!"

"Amen," said Maria with a nod. Her eyes met Steve's in a silent _thank you_.

"Amen," agreed Stane. "We've all got a lot to be thankful for."

"Yes, we do," Maria agreed.

"In fact," Stane went on, as Tony reached for the food again, "I think before we eat, we should each say a few words about what makes us thankful! Captain Rogers, why don't you go first?" He smiled at Steve.

Steve wished he hadn't. He didn't want to get involved in the messy family politics here, especially when Stane was calling on him to take the adults' side, against Tony. Then again, Steve had already _done_ that by saying grace, hadn't he? Tony seemed to think so – he was glaring at Steve from across the table, and it made Steve wish both of them had just run off with Agent Fyodorova instead. He was stuck now, though, so he took a deep breath.

"Well," he said, figuring he'd better make this short, "I'm thankful I'm no longer frozen in the arctic, and... um..." was this something people normally did at Thanksgiving in the 1980s? It felt like an invasion of privacy. A lot of what Steve was thankful for was very personal. "I'm thankful for my old friends who are still here, and the new ones I've met." That sounded really cheesy. "And... well, there we go," he finished, feeling like a thorough fool.  
"Thank you, Captain Rogers," said Maria. "Zeke?" She looked at the small boy sitting next to Steve.

"I'm thankful for _dinosaurs_ ," Zeke said firmly, without looking up from his napkin.

That helped to ease the tension. Steve chuckled, and Maria was smiling as she started on her own list.

"I'm thankful for everybody who's been with us during this very difficult year," she said. "And I'm very thankful for Tony and Captain Rogers' safe return to Earth." She turned to her son, giving him an encouraging smile.

Tony was having none of it. He sat there in absolute silence, smearing butter on his roll with enough force to tear the soft bread.

"Tony, _please_ ," said Maria. "Don't ruin Thanksgiving."

In Tony's mind, Thanksgiving was clearly already ruined. "What am I supposed to be thankful for?" he asked. "Am I supposed to be thankful Dad's dead?"

" _Antonio_!" Maria exclaimed.

"Am I supposed to be thankful _he_ practically moved in here by the summer?" Tony asked, jabbing his butter knife towards Stane.

"I came here to _help_ your mother," Stane huffed. "Did you expect _her_ to take care of the insurance and the will?"

"Yes, I did!" said Tony. "Because that was her _job_ – she was the executor!"

"She was grieving," Stane said.

" _I_ was grieving!" snarled Tony. "I managed to go into _space_! She could have done some paperwork! The only thing stopping her was _you_ hanging around telling her she was too upset!"

" _Antonio!_ " Maria got to her feet and put a hand on Tony's shoulder. " _Basta_!"

Her intervention might have done the trick, but apparently Stane had to have the last word. "Maybe that says more about _your_ relationship with your father than mine with your mother," he said.

Tony's face went red. He grabbed the glass of wine Stane had poured for him and threw the contents in the man's face, then stormed out of the room. Stane cursed and shook alcohol off his blazer, then got up to go after him, his face murderous.

"Obadiah, no," said Maria, grabbing his sleeve. "You'll only make him angrier. I will talk to him." She gently pushed Stand back into his seat, and followed Tony herself.

Steve didn't want to get involved, but as she left the room he realized with a sudden cold feeling that he had to stop her. If either she _or_ Stane followed Tony to his bedroom, they would find Fyodorova and Natalia waiting there. He stood up.

"Sit down, Captain Rogers," barked Stane, and began to carve the turkey.

"No, I... I'll be right back," Steve said. He reached the hallway just in time to feel the walls vibrate as Tony slammed his bedroom door. "Maria," Steve said, reaching for her hand. "Maria, maybe you should just let him cool off for a while..."

"No, Captain Rogers." She jerked her arm away. "This is not an isolated incident. He's been like this since he got home from school, and I cannot bear it any longer!" She reached for the doorknob, and for a moment Steve came very close to physically throwing himself in her way – but if he did that, she would know that he and Tony were hiding something.

She wrenched the door open. " _Antonio_!" she said.

"Go away!" Tony turned on the TV and raised the volume until it was impossible to hear anything else. A news anchor's voice boomed around the room: _vulcanologists are still puzzled by the eruption in Norway earlier this month, and now..._

Maria picked her way across the things on the floor to turn the television off. "We talked about this, Antonio!" she said. "You promised to behave yourself!"

"I promised to respect him as long as he deserves it!" Tony shouted back. "He knows how Dad did things!"

"Obadiah does not do things the way your father did them!" Maria informed him.

"He doesn't respect _me_ ," Tony said. "Why should I respect _him_?"

Steve knew he had no business being here. This argument was between Tony, Maria, and Stane... but he had to do something before Maria noticed Fyodorova. So far she was entirely focused on Tony, and Tony on his mother, but surely any moment now _something_ would draw attention to her. There weren't very many places to hide in Tony's room, not with his cardboard models all over the place. Steve edged into the doorway and looked behind the door, to see if the two Russians were still there.

There was no sign of them. Steve frowned, moving further into the room. The closet door was slightly open but they didn't appear to be in there. They couldn't have left by the hallway without being seen or heard, so they must have gone out onto the terrace. He went to the glass patio doors for a better look.

"Dad's only been dead for six months!" Tony was saying to his mother. " _You_ might be over it, but I'm not!"

"Antonio!" Maria gasped. "What a thing to say!"

Steve opened the patio doors and stepped out into the cold, damp November air. He didn't like the garden terrace around the Stark family's penthouse. Knowing that it was where Howard had been shot made it seem far too exposed, and he couldn't forget that it was a hell of a long way down to the street. Even so, he went right to the edge and looked over, thinking that if Fyodorova were climbing down the outside of the building she would probably still be visible. There was nobody there, though, and when he thought about it... how would anybody climb a building while carrying a toddler? Maybe Natalia was riding piggyback, although in that case she would have to be in some kind of harness so she couldn't lose her grip. He moved further around the building, to see if there were some other way down.

"Rogers?" asked Stane's voice.

Steve turned around. He was now outside the dining room, and Stane had opened the garden door there and was looking out at him with a puzzled frown.

"What are you doing?" Stane asked.

"Oh." Steve swallowed, trying to think of an excuse. "I was just, uh, paying my respects to Howard, I guess. This is where he was standing." Steve was a terrible liar. He always had been. He hoped Stane was worse than usual at telling.

He'd left the patio doors of Tony's room open, and could still hear the voices inside.

"Jarvis and Anna are more a part of this family than he is!" Tony shouted.

"He _will_ be part of this family whether you like it or not, Antonio!" Maria said. " _Non ho bisogno del tuo permesso!_ "

Steve looked at Stane again, and knew he could hear them, too. "I should probably go, I think," he decided. This was not going to be a pleasant dinner now, no matter how the argument was resolved. Assuming it was resolved at all.

Stane nodded slowly. "Yeah," he said. "You want your pie back?"

"No, that's fine. You keep it," said Steve. "Happy Thanksgiving." The phrase had never seemed more meaningless. "Thanks for the invitation, I just..."

"Don't apologize," Stane cut him off. "I'm sorry it worked out this way."

"Not your fault," Steve said, although he wasn't entirely sure that was the truth. Tony had been belligerent, but so had Stane, albeit in a much more subtle way.

As Steve left the lobby of the building a few minutes later, he stopped and looked up again. There was still no sign of anyone climbing down, and it was hard to imagine what a person would have used to do so. The smooth glass sides of the building didn't have any hand or foot-holds. He walked around the block, looking up the whole way, but still saw nothing that gave him a clue. People around him paused and craned their own necks back as he passed, trying to figure out what he was looking for. There was nothing to see. Konstantina Fyodorova had vanished as if into thin air.

Steve knew he shouldn't have been surprised. This was, after all, the same woman who'd escaped from a SHIELD lockup in May, and Peggy still hadn't figured out how she'd done it. Disappearing from the top of an apartment building must be nothing compared to that.

* * *

He caught the subway back to his own apartment uptown and warmed up some leftovers from the fridge – managing to remember this time that tinfoil could _not_ be put in the ominously-named microwave oven. Then he settled down to eat alone while watching a baseball game on TV. Tomorrow he was going to help Reverend and Mrs. Wilson serve dinner to their congregation, as well as possibly meeting with Eva Natter. She hadn't called to change her plans, so he assumed she'd be arriving on schedule. Hopefully that would all make for a better day.

At around nine PM, the bell buzzed. Steve had been half asleep, but the sound startled him awake at once. Nobody ever buzzed to be let into his apartment except for the SHIELD people – when he opened the door, he would probably find four of them already outside, waiting to take him away for a mission. He pressed the button and said, "hello?"

The voice that answered, however, was Tony Stark's. "Can I come up?" he asked.

"Tony?" Steve frowned. "Yeah, I'll let you up." He unlocked the outside door of the building, and waited.

A minute or so later, the elevator doors opened and Tony stepped out. He was still dressed in the button-down shirt and tie he'd been wearing for Thanksgiving dinner, but his feet were in banged-up sneakers and he was carrying a bag in each hand and a backpack on his shoulders. He looked pale and red-eyed, which made Steve think he must have been crying.

Despite that, he held his head up and looked Steve in the eye as he spoke. "Can I stay with you for a few days?" he asked.

"Why can't you stay with the Jarvises?" Steve asked. He didn't know where their new place was, but it couldn't be far if they'd come over to help with Thanksgiving dinner.

"Because that's the first place Mom and Obi will look," said Tony. "And I can't go stay with Rhodey's family in Pennsylvania because he joined the Air Force and doesn't live at home anymore, so that would be weird."

Steve stepped aside and let him come in. "You want to talk about it?" he asked.

"No," said Tony. He dropped his bags on the floor and sat down on the sofa as if he never intended to leave it again.

It seemed, in fact, that Tony didn't want to talk about _anything_. He got comfortable on the sofa and rolled up in a blanket, and Steve could hear the television on long into the night. At around eleven PM, shortly after Steve himself had decided to go to bed, the telephone rang. He rolled over and grabbed the handset. It _might_ be SHIELD with a mission, but Steve now thought it was more likely to be Maria Stark, looking for her son.

"Rogers," Steve said.

"Captain?" Maria's trembling voice asked. "Did I wake you? I'm sorry, but Tony left earlier tonight and he still hasn't come home. I already called Edwin and Anna..."

"He's fine," Steve assured her. "He's at my place."

"Is he? Oh, _grazie a Dio_!" said Maria. "He's all right? You're not planning on taking him into space again, are you?" This was not a joke – she was honestly worried about it.

"Absolutely not," Steve said. "I'll talk to him in the morning. He's just fine."

"Thank you," Maria said. "Now I can sleep. Good night, Captain."

"Good night, Mrs. Stark," said Steve.

* * *

One thing that had _not_ gone away in the months since they'd thawed Steve out was the nightmares. They were still very much the same as they'd been in the two or three nights between Bucky's death and the crash of the _Valkyrie_ – he'd be on that train, he'd see the railing bending in slow motion, and then he would have to watch Bucky dropping away into the swirling snow while Steve could do nothing to help him. The only difference was that now sometimes Howard was in the dreams, too. Sometimes it would be Howard standing there smoking a cigarette and recovering from a hangover when a bullet went through his head, and there wasn't a damned thing Steve could do about that, either.

And sometimes the two deaths would mix and match. Sometimes Bucky would fall not when the railing broke, but when he was shot in the back. Sometimes Steve would look up and see a dark figure with a sniper rifle on the other side of the valley, fading from view as the train rounded a corner.

"I'll find you! I will _find_ you!" Steve shouted at the assassin – and then he would wake up. Waking up wasn't even a relief anymore. It just meant that he would eventually have to go to sleep again, and the dream would start all over.

* * *

In the morning when Steve went to make himself breakfast, Tony was still curled up on the sofa in his clothes, asleep. Steve ignored him for the time being, and started up the coffee maker. Sure enough, once the aroma infused the air, Tony awakened and wandered into the kitchen to pour himself a cup. His face looked thin and pale, with dark circles under his eyes. He hadn't slept well, either.

"Good morning," said Steve.

"Hi," Tony replied, sullen.

"How long are you planning on staying?" Steve asked. Maria would want to know when her son was coming home.

Tony shrugged.

"You can't stay here forever," Steve warned.

"I know," Tony said, stiff and defensive. "I just couldn't stay _there_. He's doing in on purpose, you know." He put some sugar in his coffee and shut the cupboard door much harder than necessary. "He _knows_ that's not how we do things, but he's gotta have it _his_ way! He's gotta be the boss – and Mom always takes _his_ side!" He turned to glare at Steve, and it was difficult to tell if his expression were infuriated, or on the verge of tears.

Steve didn't know what to say. Tony obviously wanted him to say _something_ , but he didn't think he could offer much perspective on the situation. Thanksgiving was the first time he'd visited the Starks at home since Tony had graduated from school, which he'd done at the end of the summer term in August. Steve hadn't been there for any previous incidents, but it was obvious that the argument over dinner was just the latest explosion of tension that had been piling up for months and was none of Steve's business, anyway. Even if he _were_ to say something, all he could offer were platitudes – and he remembered from their conversation after Howard's funeral how little patience Tony had with those.

He must have taken too long to come up with a reply, because Tony continued. "He keeps saying Mom needs somebody, but she doesn't. After Dad's plane crash she ran the company all by herself for _months_. She didn't need anybody then, why does she need him now?" he asked.

"Well... that was different," said Steve. He knew Howard had been badly injured in that accident, but he'd recovered, and knowing he was improving might have been what had given Maria the strength.

"And he thinks he's supposed to be my dad, too!" Tony went on. "He thinks he can be my new best friend while he fucks my mother six months after Dad died!" He rubbed his shoulders, as if trying to scrub away the memory of Stane's arm around them. "I _hate_ him!"

Once again, Steve felt helpless. Maria Stark could marry whoever she wanted, and Obadiah Stane _had_ been very helpful and comforting to her after her husband's death – but he was also deliberately antagonizing Tony, who had every right to resent that. And even if Stane really _were_ just after the family's money, Steve couldn't talk to Tony about that because neither of them had any right to tell Maria what to do.

Tony sighed and looked into his cup, which he'd stuck a spoon into but hadn't actually stirred. "I couldn't stay there," he repeated. "I mean, he's _moving in_. Can't _you_ go talk to her?" He raised his head again, and this time his eyes were definitely pleading. "I mean, you're not biased. You're _Captain America_. She'll listen to you!"

"No, she won't," said Steve. Last night he'd been rather embarrassed by Tony's behaviour, but now he did feel sorry for the kid. Steve had felt unwelcome as a guest – Tony felt unwelcome in his own home. Stane was probably _trying_ to be the father figure he felt Tony needed, but Tony didn't _want_ a father figure, and the result was that the two could do nothing but clash. "She said she didn't need _your_ permission. She definitely doesn't need mine."

That must have been the answer Tony had expected, but his shoulders still slumped in disappointment. He had nowhere left to turn. "I could have gone to the house on Long Island," he said. Steve had stayed there a while after moving out of the penthouse. "But it's too far away."

Steve nodded – there wouldn't have been anyone to talk to on Long Island, either. Tony wasn't as naturally gregarious as Howard had been, but sometimes people just needed company even when they didn't want to talk. Steve hadn't wanted to talk to Peggy after Bucky died... but he'd been glad she was around.

"Maybe I'll go back to school," Tony said. "I mean, it's not like they won't take me. Maybe I can even teach. I dunno."

Steve reached out to give him a pat on the shoulder that might turn into a hug, but Tony flinched away. For a moment Steve didn't understand why, but then he recalled that Obadiah Stane was quite a touchy-feely person, and Tony was probably sick of the insincere affection. So he withdrew his hand, and went to open the fridge. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," said Tony miserably. He was expecting a question about the family situation.

What Steve wanted to know, however, was something else. "Was Fyodorova in your room when you got there?" The only explanation Steve could come up with for her vanishing was that Tony had hidden her, but even then – how had he managed to be so quick and quiet about it?

"Huh?" asked Tony. When Steve turned around with a carton of eggs in his hand, he found the young man blinking at him in puzzlement, and for a moment he was terrified that Tony would tell him there'd never been any Russian agents in his room and Steve must have hallucinated the whole thing. A moment later, however, Tony seemed to remember. "Oh, yeah! No, she wasn't," he said. In his anger last night, he appeared to have completely forgotten about her. "I didn't see her. Where did she go?"

"That's what I'd like to know," said Steve. "I thought she must have gone out onto the terrace and climbed down, but I couldn't find her anywhere."

"She'll come back," said Tony, and he was probably right. Fyodorova had gotten out of SHIELD lockup and all the way back to Moscow without getting caught, and had then _returned_ to New York via Alaska with a two-year-old in tow. If her mystery at the North Pole was worth doing that for, it was definitely worth a second visit. She might even be in his pantry right now.

He opened it, but found only food. Steve pulled out a loaf of bread and closed the door again.

Tony snickered. "Did you think she was gonna be in there?"

"She's turned up in stranger places," said Steve. He put some bread in the toaster, and cracked four eggs into a bowl for scrambling. The atmosphere in the room had now eased considerably. Tony had needed somebody to rant at, and now that he'd let those pent-up emotions out, he felt much better. "If you're gonna be here for a while, there's something you can do for me," he added.

"What's that?" Tony asked. "Has it got to do with the volcano in Norway? Because I've been following that." He put down his cup so he could gesture with both hands, as he tended to do when he was particularly interested in something. "They still can't figure out what happened. That area isn't tectonically active. It's right in the middle of the Eurasian plate, and..."

"Nothing to do with that," Steve said quickly. "I'm helping serve dinner at Reverend Wilson's church tonight, and they always need more volunteers. I want you to come." It would get Tony out of the apartment and distract him. "That way I can tell your mother that I took you to church this time, instead of to space."

Tony was startled by the request, and perhaps a little disappointed, but he tried not to show it. "She still hasn't forgive you, huh?" he asked, and then shrugged. "I can do that, sure."

* * *

That afternoon the two of them walked through the wet snow to the Assembly of the Holy Spirit, which was located in an old movie theatre. The wall where posters had once been displayed had been painted over with a stylized mural of Christ's baptism, and the marquee sign displayed information about the Thanksgiving dinner as well as upcoming sermons and classes, next to the church's red and white bird logo. Steve went and knocked on the side door.

It opened to reveal Darlene Wilson, bouncing her baby son in her arms. "Hi, Steve," she said. "Glad you could make it."

"Glad I could come," Steve said. "Hey, little guy," he added to the baby, tickling his cheek with one finger the way he'd seen Paul do. Baby Sam wiggled in delight and gave him a gummy smile.

"That's right, Sammy, show Uncle Steve your new teeth," said Darlene. The baby had just two, in the bottom middle. "There they are!"

"Very nice," Steve agreed. "Darlene, you remember Tony Stark, right? He's gonna help out this evening."

"Wonderful." Darlene smiled at Tony. "We always need another pair of hands. Come on in."

What had once been the theatre's green room had been converted into a kitchen, where volunteers were busy getting turkey and vegetables ready. One woman was pulling four pumpkin pies out of the oven and getting four more ready to go in, while a group of kids sat peeling their way through an enormous tub of potatoes.

"Where do you want us?" Steve asked.

"Well, if Tony would help with the carrots and potatoes, that would be wonderful," said Darlene. "And the best thing _you_ can do, actually, is hold _this_." She held out the baby. "I've got a few calls to make, and he always cries the moment I pick up the phone. If you could entertain him for fifteen or twenty minutes, that would be wonderful."

"Oh." Steve took the baby as if afraid it would break in his hands. "I guess I could do that." Babies made him nervous – he'd been handed dozens of them so that pictures could be taken after his war bonds performances, and the babies had never been very happy about it. Those babies, however, had been in an unfamiliar environment, surrounded by noise and flashbulbs, while baby Sam was used to the hubbub of his parents' church. He just squirmed and cooed as he was put in Steve's arms.

"You're an angel," said Darlene. "I'll be right back." She wiped her hands on her apron and hurried out of the room.

Steve hadn't known how Tony would react to being asked to peel potatoes, but the young man sat down with the children and grabbed a tool to get started. The other kids ranged in age from about five to almost as old as Tony himself, and looked at him with interest.

"You're friends with Captain America?" one of the boys asked.

"Yep," said Tony proudly. "I went into space with him."

"Cool!" a little girl in pigtails exclaimed. "What was it like?"

Tony was, as always, happy to share knowledge. "Well, when you blast off it's really loud and shakes a lot," he said. "Then when you get into orbit, it's very quiet because there's no sound from outside. There's no gravity, either, so everything just floats around..."

While Tony chatted with the kids, Steve walked in circles around the kitchen carrying Sam. He'd seen Darlene do the same thing at home to calm the baby when he cried, and he hoped it would now keep him from getting upset in the first place. It seemed to be working, because Sam didn't make a sound – instead, he twisted his head back and forth, staring at what was going on around him with huge brown eyes that hardly dared blink. Steve wondered what went on in the mind of a six-month-old. How much did he understand of what he was seeing?

It was on Steve's third lap of the kitchen that he heard his name mentioned – he looked up to find Paul Wilson coming in through the stage door. "Darlene said he'd arrived, so he'll be here somewhere," he was saying. He stepped into the kitchen, and right behind him was Eva Natter.

Today her spiral perm had been allowed free reign instead of being weighed down with pseudo-Egyptian beads, and she was stylishly dressed in a blouse with a big asymmetrical print and tight sky-blue trousers. Her makeup was intended to look natural, rather than the dramatic colours and contrasts she'd worn with her costume, but she was still absolutely stunning.

"Surprise!" she said with a smile.

Steve came closer and handed Sam over to Paul, who was waiting to receive him. He knew this was a distraction Steve wouldn't refuse. "What are you doing here?" Steve asked.

To his surprise, she giggled nervously. "You said you'd be doing dinner with your friend, Reverend Wilson, so I looked him up. Too creepy?" she asked.

"Just a little," said Steve with a smile. He glanced over his shoulder at Tony, who had stopped talking and was staring, open-mouthed. Steve winked at him. "You want to stick around and help?" he asked Eva.

"I don't really cook," Eva said, "but I can't say _no_ to Captain America!"

He nodded. "Call me Steve."


	4. Chapter 4: Deja Vu

The rest of the evening went very well – Steve, Tony, and Eva helped to serve heaping platefuls of turkey, stuffing, and vegetables to the congregation, and then everybody sat in the theatre seats and ate while Paul delivered a heartfelt sermon about gratitude towards both the Lord and one's fellow man. It somehow managed to feel far more welcoming and personal than the aborted dinner with the Stark family had, even in the crowd and the semi-darkness. Maybe it was because Steve could remember his own mother taking him to such charity suppers as a boy. It felt good to be on the giving end of such a thing, instead of in the lineup.

Tony was not remotely interested in sermons, so halfway through he leaned over and whispered to Steve, "am I seeing things, or is that Eva Natter?"

"You've heard of her?" Steve asked. Ambassador Barnum had implied that she wasn't well-known in the New World.

"Of course I've heard of her! She does all those Chanel ads in Europe," said Tony. "Where'd _you_ meet her?"

"Party in Norway," Steve said. "The one I had to leave when the volcano erupted."

" _Hush_!" hissed a woman on the other side of Tony. "Don't talk over the word of our Lord!"

Tony looked up at Paul, standing in the centre of the stage reading from the Bible, and then took a big bite of turkey. He wanted his full mouth to be what kept him from talking, Steve observed, rather than any respect for a god he did not believe in.

After the meal, the volunteers began collecting plates and leftovers. Steve pushed a cart up and down the aisles to take the dishes, and Eva came to put hers on it with an apologetic smile.

"I can't stay any later," she said. "I've got stuff to do tonight. This is the number for the hotel I'm staying at, though. It's room 113, under the name Miss Cotton." She offered another business card, this one with the name and room number in round, looping writing. It was not the same hand as the note on the back of the last card, and Steve wondered which was the work of a secretary.

"Cotton." He nodded. "I'll remember that."

She looked around at the room, and the people cleaning up and chatting amongst themselves. "I can't say I ever did anything like this before."

"I did," said Steve. "But I was usually on the other side of the table."

"Oh!" she smiled. "And now you want to give back."

"Yeah," Steve agreed.

There was a bit of an awkward silence then. Steve felt a prod in his side and glanced at Tony, who jerked his head towards Eva as if trying to tell Steve something. Was Steve supposed to kiss her? Maybe he was... but did Eva want to be kissed? Steve's complete dearth of dating experience in his teens had left him very bad at reading the social cues involved. What if she didn't? And then there was Peggy's talk of _finding the right partner_. Not that Steve needed Peggy's approval to kiss anybody, any more than Maria Stark needed her son's to get married, but _was_ Eva the right partner for him? He barely knew her. Of course, he hadn't known Private Naomi Lorraine at _all_ and that hadn't bothered _her_... but Peggy had _definitely_ disapproved of him kissing Private Lorraine!

"Well," Eva said. "I'd better go. I'm doing location shoots all week, but maybe we can do something in the evening again. Or if there's no snow. They want snow."

"That sounds like a good idea. I'll call you," said Steve.

She wiggled her fingers in a little wave as she headed for the door. She'd been much more at ease tonight than she had at Barnum's party, Steve observed, but also a little shyer, more nervous. Maybe this was what she was really like, under a facade she put up for politics. He could certainly sympathize with that.

"You're an idiot," Tony said, as soon as she was out of earshot. "There are people who would literally sell their souls to kiss Eva Natter."

"I barely know her," Steve protested.

"You're not _marrying_ her, just kissing her goodbye!" said Tony. "She probably thinks you blew her off!"

Steve had to wonder how much of _Tony's_ interactions with the opposite sex were modeled on his father's – but he knew better than to ask. "So you're with Fury, then," he said. "Fury thinks only a fool would turn down a date with the beautiful, wealthy European woman."

"Definitely with Fury," said Tony. The dish cart was full by now, so he pushed it back towards the kitchen to unload.

"What I want to know," Steve said, following him, "is why everybody cares so much about whether I get a date."

"Let's say you come across as a man who desperately needs to get laid," Tony replied. Steve went ahead to hold the kitchen door open so Tony could push the cart inside. "Oh, man... you'd probably do something like take her mini-golfing, wouldn't you? Don't do that! Because when reporters find out that Eva Natter is on a date with Captain America at _mini-golf_ you will literally embarrass both of you in front of the entire world."

"I... wasn't actually thinking of that," said Steve. "But I'll keep it in mind."

By ten PM the dishes were clean and the leftovers had been sorted into what could be donated to local homeless shelters and what would have to be thrown away. Steve said goodnight to Paul and Darlene, and he and Tony washed up and headed back to Steve's apartment. On the way Tony stopped in a video rental place to pick up a movie they could watch. Steve worried this would be one of the monster movies Tony seemed to like so much, but instead it was a sci-fi adventure called _The Empire Strikes Back_.

Steve would probably have understood the story better if he'd seen the film it was apparently a sequel to. As it was, he had only a very vague idea of who any of these people were, or why a young man was doing headstands at the behest of a green frog creature.

"So what kind of date _were_ you thinking of?" Tony asked, with his mouth full of popcorn. "What did people used to do in the forties?"

"The same things we do in any decade, I guess," said Steve. "People still go to movies. People still go dancing."

"Well, that's a relief," said Tony. "How about you take her to a Broadway show? That's romantic, it's very New York, and it won't make you look like an idiot on the front page of the _Bugle_. Here." He grabbed a newspaper off the coffee table. "There'll be ads in the entertainment section. Pick one. But please don't pick _Raggedy Anne_ because that one's creepy."

Steve was beginning to get annoyed. "Who's taking her out?" he asked. "You or me?"

"That depends," said Tony. "If you don't, I will!"

"She's old enough to be your mother," Steve said.

"Then you'd better take her out," Tony replied with a smile.

* * *

Steve called Eva the next day. At Tony's advice, he waited until the late afternoon, which would hopefully be after she was done working for the day but before she sat down to dinner. He asked for Miss Cotton in room 113, and as before, it was Baumhauer who answered.

"Uh, it's Captain Rogers," Steve said.

" _Ja_ , Miss Natter is expecting your call." Baumhauer sounded very tired. There were some rustling noises, and then Eva's voice came on the line.

"Hi, Steve," she said through a yawn. "Sorry, I've had a long day. They wanted pictures with the sunrise, so that meant I had to be up for wardrobe and makeup at four, when I'm still jetlagged."

"Does that mean Radio City Music Hall tonight is out?" Steve asked.

She giggled. "Sorry, Captain... thanks for offering, but I just can't. What about Wednesday? I've got the day off, so I can sleep in and be awake to enjoy it."

"All right, Wednesday," said Steve. "The show starts at..." he looked at Tony.

 _Eight_ , Tony mouthed. He held up both hands with the thumbs tucked in, but fingers extended.

Steve nodded. "The show starts at eight, so how about I pick you up at five thirty, and we can have dinner in time for doors at seven?"

"That sounds great, Captain," said Eva.

"All right, Wednesday at five-thirty." Steve nodded.

Tony pumped an arm in the air in a silent cheer.

"See you then, Captain," said Eva.

"See you," Steve said, and hung up.

"There you go – was that so hard?" Tony asked.

"No," Steve admitted. "It really wasn't."

* * *

It hadn't been, but over the next couple of days Steve found himself overthinking the conversation anyway. The _reason_ it had seemed so easy, he decided, was probably because he had no experience to base an assessment on. Before the war, Steve's attempts to interact with women had been difficult because he hadn't been the type of man they were interested in. Then _during_ the war, he'd become Captain America – and suddenly there'd been women all around him but he hadn't had the _time_ to go on dates. There'd been a couple of incidents like Naomi Lorraine, but mostly, there'd been Peggy.

Steve and Peggy had never really _dated_ , but they _had_ worked together, constantly and in perfect harmony. In the end they'd gotten so used to working together, and so good at it, that they'd decided they wanted to spend the rest of their lives doing so. There'd never been any _need_ for them to 'date'. That had been a long time ago, though, and now Steve had been thrown into a future where Peggy was married and he was on his own, having to start from the beginning again. If he wanted to get to know Eva, he had to _date_ her, and that was something Steve Rogers simply didn't know how to do.

He didn't doubt that Tony and Fury would both be delighted to give him lessons in how to date, but something in Steve didn't like that idea. He had always preferred to figure things out on his own. So he took Tony's advice on how to _dress_ when he went to meet Eva at the Plaza Hotel on Wednesday night, but refused any suggestions about what to say or do when he got there. He just greeted her in the lobby with a smile on his face and a flower in his hand.

The Plaza Hotel had been built in 1907, so Steve was familiar with it as a landmark, but this was the first time he'd been inside. It looked like something out of a movie, with its shining tile floors and glittering chandeliers, and it was the kind of setting that made Steve nervous. This was a place where politicians and movie stars hung out, and Steve, for all his fame and all the things he'd done, was just a soldier. He didn't belong here. At Barnum's party he'd at least been able to tell himself that everybody else, in their costumes, looked as ridiculous as he did in his. Now in a dark blue suit and red tie, he just felt like the proverbial square peg.

Then the elevator doors opened, and Eva stepped out. She was wearing an iridescent green gown, with puffed sleeves, a v-neckline, and a slim skirt. Her only jewelry was one gold bangle and a clip in her curly dark hair. Dramatic green eyeshadow matched her dress, and her lipstick was a glowing shade of red. Steve had to admit, whatever else he did or did not know about this woman, she _was_ gorgeous.

"Hi, Captain," she said, and then corrected herself. "Steve."

"You look lovely," he said, offering her the flower. She did, and yet somehow she didn't look quite _real_. That was the big difference, Steve realized, between Eva and Peggy. Peggy had always rolled up her sleeves and got dirty with the rest of them, always a very real and physical sort of a person. Eva, on the other hand, was a bit ethereal, a fantasy rather than a reality. She was the kind of woman Howard had always surrounded himself with, at least until he'd married the very warm and practical Maria.

"Thanks. I worked hard on it," Eva replied, accepting the rose with a smile. It was pink, which had seemed less committed than red, and the colour clashed with her dress. "You don't look bad yourself, Mr. Dashing Hero."

"Thank you. I worked hard on it, too," said Steve. Of course, he realized, her slightly unreal quality was something she did on purpose, a front she put up for her image. He couldn't judge her on that. "Shall we? I promise not to throw you on the ground if a truck backfires outside," he added.

She blinked a couple of times, then laughed and took his arm, and he led her towards the dining room. Tony had tried to tell Steve that it was weird to take a woman to dinner in the hotel where she was already staying, but it seemed way more convenient than going somewhere else and then having to come _back_ to the area for their show. Eva herself didn't seem to mind.

Steve could tell that people were looking at them. He'd never liked being stared at, so he tried to act like he didn't care, keeping his head up and his eyes on their destination. "If another volcano goes off, though," he added, "I might not be able to stop myself."

"There's no volcanoes in New York City, silly," Eva said.

"I don't know if I'd be that sure," Steve replied. He approached the maitre d' at the restaurant entrance. "Rogers. I've got a reservation," he said, and then looked back at Eva. "There's not supposed to be any volcanoes in Norway, either."

Eva gave her pink rose to the man. "Put this in water on our table," she said to him, then answered Steve. "Isn't there? I thought that whole area was all volcanoes... you hear about volcanoes in Iceland all the time."

"Iceland is way out in the middle of the ocean," said Steve. "Thousands of miles away."

"Oh," said Eva. "I've never been to Iceland."

At their table, he pulled out her chair for her, stepping in front of the maitre d' who'd been about to do the same thing. Eva smiled and sat down, while a waitress hurried up with a vase to put her rose in and menus for them. Everything seemed to be going well so far.

"Did you find anybody alive after that?" Eva asked, as Steve himself sat. "It must have been awful."

Steve picked up his menu. "We found a few," he said, "but..."

Then a voice interrupted him. "There he is!" it exclaimed.

Steve looked up. His first thought had been that it might be a reporter, but now he realized it was was both better and worse – it was Tony Stark.

"Captain!" the boy called, weaving through waiters and diners to get to the table. He was wearing faded jeans and an electric blue ski jacket over a _Rush_ t-shirt, not at all dressed for the Plaza Hotel. "Hey, Captain Rogers!"

"What are you doing here?" Steve asked. Tony had been _interested_ in his upcoming date, but hadn't shown any signs of wanting to crash it. Steve glanced at Eva, and found her staring at their uninvited guest in puzzlement. Was this how Bucky had used to feel, Steve wondered, when _Steve_ insisted on turning up every time his friend went out with a girl?

"Madame Director called," Tony said. "I had to tell her where you went, and I wanted to get here and warn you before she..."

"Excuse me, Captain Rogers." The maitre d' returned to the table and put out an arm. "Excuse me, Mr. Stark. Captain Rogers, you've a visitor waiting in the atrium for you."

"I _tried_ to tell her you were on your first date in forty years," said Tony. "She doesn't care."

Steve looked at Eva again, who clearly didn't know what to make of the situation. He smiled weakly at her. "I'll be right back," he promised, and got up to follow the other two men back to the lobby.

Peggy was waiting there, as he'd expected, with a number of other people in tow. She never went anywhere as far as Steve could tell without at least one or two bodyguards, and now she was also accompanied by a man, a woman, and a girl of seven or eight. Steve vaguely recognized them as people he'd seen at Howard Stark's funeral, but he didn't remember their names.

"Steve," Peggy stepped towards him. "I'm sorry. Tony told me you were taking a night off, but we need you."

"You're asking him to just leave _Eva Natter_ sitting there by herself?" Tony said.

Peggy gave him a cold look. "Not all of us have a Stark's sense of priorities, Tony," she said, and turned to Steve again. "It's a rescue mission. There's a fire on an offshore oil rig. Rescue crews can't get close through regular means, we need special people. I've got some volunteers," she glanced back at the little family, "but I'd like you along. It's a request, not an order. You can say _no_." Her eyes said she hoped he didn't.

It wasn't another volcano, but the word _rescue_ was one Steve couldn't refuse. Eva could wait for him. People trapped on a burning oil rig could not. "All right," he said. "Let me just tell my date."

"What about me?" Tony asked. "Can I help?"

"No," said Peggy.

"I went to space with him before," Tony protested.

"You're not a SHIELD agent," Peggy told him. "And your father would haunt me for all eternity if I made you one. You're an engineer. This situation doesn't call for your type of skills."

The woman standing next to her spoke up. She was petite, with brown hair that was not permed but had been very thoroughly teased. "Actually," she said, "there _is_ something you can do, Tony." She took her daughter's hand. "You can watch Hope while Hank and I are gone."

Tony looked down at the child, then up at her mother again. "Seriously?" he asked.

"Very seriously," the woman said.

When Steve returned to the dining room, he found Eva right where he'd left her. She stood when she saw him coming, but did not smile. "I'm guessing it's not good news," she said. " _Is_ it another volcano?"

"No," Steve said. "It's an oil rig fire. I have to go."

She lowered her head, disappointed. "I see. Maybe next week?"

"I'll call you," Steve promised. He hesitated, but ultimately decided not to kiss her this time, either. Not when he'd just let her down. "Should I see you back to your room?" It seemed polite.

"No, thanks, Captain," she said. "I might as well have something to eat while I'm here. Good luck on your mission."

"Thank you," said Steve.

He was feeling distinctly like a heel as he accompanied Peggy and the others outside to the waiting SHIELD cars. Not only was Eva going to be eating alone, but they'd had to leave Tony and Hope in the lobby, looking sulky. What else was Steve supposed to do, though? There were lives at stake. He couldn't just leave people to die because he wanted to spend time with a pretty girl.

Once they were all in the cars, Peggy wasted no time starting their briefing. "Captain Rogers, I believe you've met Dr. and Mrs. Pym – Hank and Janet," she said.

"Briefly," he said.

She nodded and handed around portfolios. "The _Achilles_ oil rig is located in Baffin Bay, two hundred miles off the coast of Greenland. Twenty minutes ago there was an unexplained explosion. Now crude oil is burning on the surface of the ocean all around, and the fire and smoke is making it impossible for rescuers to get close. We want to drop you three from the air. Steve is an expert at landing on things he shouldn't try to land on," she said, with just a hint of a smile.

"It's a special talent of mine," Steve said, feeling slightly ridiculous that he was the only one here wearing a suit and tie. "What about you two?" he asked the Pyms. Steve knew _he_ could jump out of an aircraft and hit a target he couldn't see, because he'd done it before. How were the Pyms getting down?

"We've got special talents of our own," Janet replied, smiling brightly.

"Their job will be to shut down the pumps that are bringing more oil up, so the fire will run out of fuel," said Peggy. "Steve, you have to find whatever survivors you can and get them into the safety harnesses the helicopters will lower, and deal with any hostiles."

"Hostiles?" he asked. "On a burning oil rig?"

"Ecological groups have been protesting Roxxon's arctic installations," Peggy explained. "They're worried this is an attack. Keep an eye open for any evidence of sabotage."

"We'll take lots of pictures," Hank promised.

The cars took them out of the city and up into the mountains, to a familiar location – a tiny airstrip SHIELD used when it needed to keep its aircraft out of the major corridors around LaGuardia and JKF. More agents were waiting there with equipment for them. There were the same heat suits Steve and Fury had worn in Tønsberg, and a set of black SHIELD fatigues for Steve so that he wouldn't have to do his rescue work in a suit and tie. After changing he headed for the main briefing room, with its windows overlooking the runway, to rejoin the Pyms. They were in uniforms of their own, very different from his – charcoal grey and cherry red, with helmets that looked like something out of one of Tony's alien invasion movies.

Steve didn't question it. There were always reasons for these things. There was another question he was far more interested in. "Where's Nick Fury?"

Peggy was spreading out a map and some blueprints on a table. "He's back in Europe, looking into some things for me. I didn't want to give you another chance to broil him." She put a finger on the map. "The rig is here. We won't have any trouble finding it. The smoke column is visible for miles."

Just like the volcano in Tønsberg, Steve thought. In fact, this whole evening was giving him an eerie sense of having done this before, even if the actual nature of the disasters were totally different. Did it mean anything?

"The helicopter will drop you from above," Peggy went on. "Prevailing winds in the area are very strong – you wouldn't be able to control a parachute, but I know Hank and Janet can handle that, and so can Steve. Once you're on the rig, they can use the signals from your communications radios to hold a position directly above and send down harnesses and additional oxygen masks.

"The Pyms will investigate the piping," she said, tracing the route on the blueprints, "while Steve should head for the canteen, right here." It was a large room in the southeast corner of the structure. "That's where the crew of the rig is supposed to gather in an emergency, so it's the first place to look for survivors. Go in, shut off the oil, get the crew, and get out quickly. The water below is nearly twenty-five hundred feet deep. If the rig collapses, Roxxon will have to hire a submersible to do any more salvage and that's very, very expensive."

"Whereas we're cheap?" asked Steve with a smile.

"I've assured the project leaders and the Canadian government that I have every faith in you," Peggy told him.

Steve nodded. Something about Peggy's unquestioning belief in his ability to do anything he put his mind to had always been immensely inspiring to him. He might let other people down, but not Peggy. That, at least, hadn't changed in forty years.

Outside, a fuel truck was seeing to the plane that would take them to Pond Inlet in Canada's Northwest Territories, where they would board the helicopter to the _Achilles_. Steve watched that for a moment, and then, while the Pyms studied the layout of the rig's piping, he went and spoke to Peggy again.

"While I'm here," he said, as casually as possible – although that, in itself, would tell her that something wasn't right. "I was thinking about it the other day and I wondered, did you ever find out what happened to Konstantina Fyodorova?"

"No," said Peggy sourly. It plainly wasn't something she liked to be reminded of. She pursed her lips and looked up at him. "Why? Did you?"

For a moment, Steve considered lying, but that wouldn't be right. He knew she was even less inclined to trust Fyodorova than he was, but the two of them had to trust each _other_ , and that meant telling the truth. "She contacted me a few days ago," he explained. "She wanted help with something she said was going on at the north pole, but there wasn't time to get any details."

Peggy thought about that for a moment. "I'll have somebody look into it," she decided. "Is she still in New York, or do you think she left the city?"

"Do you really think she'd tell _me_?" asked Steve. Either possibility was plausible. Fyodorova might stick around because she wanted to speak with Steve again, or she might leave in order to avoid SHIELD.

"No, but hope springs eternal," said Peggy. "Just be careful what _you_ say to _her_. Those girls are experts at wheedling out secrets. You'll find yourself answering questions you didn't even realize they asked."

Steve nodded.

"Since we're on the topic, by the way," Peggy added, "Eva Natter is a spy."

 _That_ took a moment to process. Even after he'd lined up all the words in his head and assured himself that he'd heard them correctly, Steve _still_ wasn't sure that was what Peggy had meant to say. "What?" he asked finally.

Peggy rolled her eyes. "You didn't think she went to Bob Barnum's parties because she _likes_ him, did you?"

"Well, no," Steve admitted.

"She's pretty harmless," Peggy said. "The East German government uses her to keep an eye on American foreign policy in Europe. Just be careful about discussing your work with her and you ought to be fine."

Steve, however, felt rather betrayed. There'd been moments when he'd worried that Eva might be like those women during the war, who'd liked his body and looked at him more as if he were something to eat than an object of affection. Eva didn't seem to be that type, but now here was another possibility entirely. "Is that why she wants to go out with me?"

"I doubt it," said Peggy. "She's probably far more interested in the fact that you're a superhero, although I'm sure the _Volkskammer_ are wetting themselves at the prospect of having a spy in bed with you." She smiled at her own joke, and Steve felt his cheeks heating up. He wished he didn't blush so easily. "If you were anyone else," Peggy told him, "I'd say string her along in the hope that we can pump _her_ for something someday."

Her choice of words didn't go unnoticed. "But since I'm _not_ anybody else," he said, "what are you going to tell _me_?"

"To do whatever will make you happy," said Peggy.

Her eyes were wistful, and it made Steve suddenly wonder – when he'd reappeared back in the spring, had _she_ wondered if they could still have a future together? Had that been on her mind all the time Dum-Dum had been in the hospital, that if he died she might still get to be with Steve? And did she hate herself for that thought as much as Steve did?

"I'll work on that," he said. He'd thought he wanted to try dating... but whether he wanted to try dating a _spy_ , even a harmless one, he didn't know.

With the plane's fuel tanks full, Steve and the Pyms got on board. It would be a quick flight in the supersonic jet to northern Canada, and only a short hop from there to the rig by helicopter, but every wasted moment might mean more lost lives. The pilot was already starting his takeoff roll as they did up their safety harnesses.

"We use code names on missions, Captain," Dr. Pym noted, still shuffling through the blueprints of the rig.

"I'm Wasp," Janet said. "He's Ant-Man."

"Got it," Steve said. It wasn't unlike the nicknames the commandos had used during the war. "How about me? _Captain America_ is awfully long."

"Then we'll just call you Cap," Janet suggested.

That worked. "What are those 'special talents' you two mentioned?" Steve asked. "Just in case I see a situation that could benefit from them." He liked knowing what was in his team's toolbox. You never knew when you might be glad of something like Dum-Dum's encyclopedic knowledge of cigars or Gabe's ability to swear in no less than fourteen different languages.

"We're good at getting into tight places," said Hank, in the voice of a man who preferred to keep his secrets.

"We shrink," said Janet, in that of a woman with no time for her husband's reticence. "I fly, too. Hank's scared of heights."

"I am not scared of heights!" snorted Hank.

"You're scared for falling from them," Janet told him.

"That's not the same thing."

Janet smiled at Steve. "He's fine as long as I'm carrying him," she said, and reached to pat Hank's cheek. He leaned away from her, but couldn't quite escape her touch. "Sourpuss," she chided.

"We've got a mission," said Hank. "This is no time for joking around."

"No time is a good time for joking around when you're in the room," Janet said, not at all dissuaded. "You'll get used to him, Cap. He does _have_ a sense of humour, he just prefers to pretend otherwise."

Steve nodded. "Well... I wouldn't say this is a good time for humour, either," he said.

"See?" asked Hank.

Janet just rolled her eyes. "Oh, you two are gonna get along like a house on fire," she declared.


	5. Chapter 5: Achilles

The column of smoke from the Tønsberg volcano had been visible from miles away – Steve had expected the _Achilles_ to be the same. As they got closer, however, the weather became more and more miserable, with low, damp clouds and falling snow that obscured visibility. The sea below them was rough and heaving, with chunks of ice floating in it. It was no wonder the rescuers couldn't get close.

"There!" said Janet Pym suddenly.

Steve followed her pointing finger, and when he squinted through the clouds he saw a point of glowing orange. It seemed far too steady to be a fire, but as they got closer – and began to smell the burning oil – he realized that there was simply too much of it to flicker. Half the rig was engulfed in flames, belching thick, black, stinking smoke.

The helicopter got lower and circled so that they could study the layout up close. The _Achilles_ resembled an entire factory complex on this floating platform out at sea, with the derrick standing tall in the middle. On one side was the four-storey living quarters. Half of one exterior wall was taken up by a cartoonish painting of a man in a Greek warrior's costume, sulking next to an anachronistically modern tent. There was a helipad on the roof, but with the black smoke spoiling the visibility and the heat of the fire producing unpredictable winds, it would have been impossible to land.

Across from the living quarters was the working half of the platform, where the storage tanks and processing plants were, and the huge crane that hung over the ocean to load soil onto tanker ships. That side was an inferno. Paint was bubbling and blackening in the intense heat, and metal structures were starting to sag as temperatures approached their melting point.

"This is our stop," said Janet, shouting over the din of wind and fire. There was no more smile on her face as she closed and locked her helmet. Hank did the same, and the two of them got into a harness that strapped them together, him in front of her. A pair of insect-like mechanical wings sprang out of a unit on Janet's back. These looked impossibly too small to carry her, let alone her and her husband both.

"Ready?" asked Hank.

"On three!" Janet nodded. They counted together – and then both of them simply vanished from sight.

The helicopter then altered its course, rising higher to hover over the living area of the rig. Steve made sure his oxygen supply was hooked up, and too several deep breaths to try to saturate his blood. His unusual metabolism head that he would run out of air quickly. He would have to make the best use of it he could.

"Tell me when!" said the pilot.

Steve leaned out the open door, squinting into the chaos below. "To the left!" he shouted – that would let him catch the prevailing wind as he fell. "A little more... little further... there!" He held his breath, said a short prayer, and jumped.

The cold hit him first, as he spread his arms and legs to let the wind buoy him up. Then, a moment later, the _heat_ came at him – and at the worst possible time, he found himself in the middle of a memory. There he was, at the controls of the _Valkyrie_ , mere feet above the icy arctic ocean and about to die in fire or ice or some unnatural combination of the two. He shook his head as hard as he could to dispel the flashback. Now was no time to get stuck in the past. He had to stay in the moment. He had to get this _done_.

Try as he might, what brought him back was not his own efforts, but his violent collision with the side of the rig. There was the ring of breaking glass, and Steve felt impact and pain and confusion before finally blinking away the last shreds of memory to find himself groaning as he clung to the struts supporting the edge of the helipad. Below him, the heaving ocean was about a hundred feet away. Above was the overhanging edge of the pad – he couldn't go that way. He could only go to the side, and try to get in the window that had broken a moment earlier, when his shoulder and shield had been blown against it by the ferocious wind.

"Captain?" the pilot called over the radio. "Are you okay? Captain Rogers?"

"I'm fine," grunted Steve, shimmying down the support strut towards the wall. He felt like a fool – he should have _known_ this place would bring on flashbacks. Peggy had _told_ him they were going to drop him over the arctic – how could he have been such an idiot as to not prepare? Peggy herself had no way to know, because he'd never told her what those last seconds had been like. He didn't want her to think he was anything less than the hero she remembered. It had been his responsibility to be ready, and he'd failed. "Ant-Man and Wasp," he said, changing the subject, "what's your status?"

"We're on the derrick, looking for a way in," Hank's voice rustled in his ear. "We'll keep you informed."

"Awesome," said Steve with only a hint of sarcasm, and then bit his lip. Nobody had used the word 'awesome' casually in the 40's – it had been reserved for situations in which people actually felt _awe_. He must have picked up the modern use from Tony.

He made it to the bottom of the strut, and began making his way from window to window, holding on to the freezing cold metal frames, to get to the broken one. At least the structure itself sheltered him from the worst of the smoke here, but even with his oxygen mask on he could still smell the oil. Every whiff felt like it coated the inside of his nose and mouth with soot, and he wanted to smack his lips and swallow hard to get rid of it.

The glass in the window was cracked, but much of it was still in the frame. Steve pulled out as much as he could, then rolled through and landed on the floor in a heap. When he began to pick himself up, he put a hand right on a piece of broken glass and hissed a curse as it cut through his glove. He suppressed the urge to shout and instead grabbed a nearby table leg for support. Once he was upright, he saw that the table had a hand of solitaire laid out on it, as well as a cup of coffee and a plate with half a donut. The cards were beginning to flutter as the wind came in the broken window.

That was a piece of good luck, he realized – he'd come in to the canteen itself. If there were any survivors, they ought to be here. Why was it so quiet?

"I'm in," he announced for the benefit of the Pyms and the helicopter pilot. "I've found the canteen but there doesn't seem to be anybody in here. Let me look around."

"Roger," said the pilot.

It was pitch dark in the room, with only a very faint ruddy glow coming in from outside. Even then, shouldn't people have come to investigate the sound of the glass? Or had they taken shelter, worried about the arctic weather coming in? Steve switched on a flashlight and took a look around.

The pictures in Peggy's briefing dossiers had shown Steve what to expect in the _Achilles_ ' canteen. It was a big room with linoleum floors, beige walls, and pipes and fans in the ceiling, strictly functional as everything in such a place had to be. There would be the tables and chairs were workers gathered to eat and socialize, and a couple of television sets where they could watch sports or news. The walls would be decorated with hockey posters and images of warmer, greener parts of the Canadian north.

That was not what Steve saw now. What he saw didn't even make any _sense_ , and it wasn't until Steve went up and actually _touched_ it that he realized what it was. Even then, he couldn't imagine what it was _doing_ there. Half of the room had been engulfed by...

"It's... it's a _tree_ ," said Steve, as if saying it out loud would force it to become comprehensible. It didn't.

The tree was enormous, the size of a California redwood, and its bulk filled at least half the room. Its bark was rough and dark red, with patches of moss growing on it. No leaves or needles were visible, and Steve thought that if they existed they must be hundreds of feet above. Why hadn't they seen this thing from outside? With the entire platform engulfed in smoke, it hadn't been possible to see _much_ , but surely _something_ should have been obvious. Then again, the fire had been burning for hours now. Perhaps it had already consumed the top and sent it crashing into the ocean.

No, that couldn't be right, either. The helipad directly above had been completely intact. How could this giant plant just... stop?

What was a _tree_ doing in the middle of the ocean, anyway? In the middle of the _arctic_ ocean, hundreds of miles from any tree even a fraction of this size? How had a section of it gotten into the middle of the canteen of an oil rig?

"Wasp? Ant-Man?" asked Steve. "You guys found anything?"

"We're in the pipes," Hank replied. "The valves obviously blew up, and it's no wonder. They're full of..." he paused. "Vegetation. And. Uh. _Snails_."

"That one's a cricket," said Janet.

"It can't be a cricket, it's the size of a rat," Hank told her.

"I think they have them in New Zealand," Janet said.

Was that what they were looking at, Steve wondered – a piece of New Zealand somehow transposed to the arctic? It didn't matter right now, he decided. SHIELD had smart people who could figure that out, and they would do so based on the report Steve and his team brought back. "Do your jobs," he ordered. "Turn off the oil and look for survivors."

"Aye-aye, Captain," said Janet.

Steve made his way around the side of the tree, looking for the canteen doors. Clearly there were no people in here. They must have found somewhere else to take refuge when they'd seen what had happened to this part of the building. Maybe they hadn't been able to get into the room at all – if the tree were as big as it looked, it might easily block the entire door and fill the hallway outside.

Something brushed Steve's shoulder. He turned to look, and saw a broad, grubby human hand.

"Sir!" Steve grabbed the hand, but then let go immediately when he found it limp and rubbery, obviously dead. But rather than moving freely, like the hand of a recently deceased corpse, or sitting stiff, as it would in rigor mortis, the hand was _hanging_ from something solid. The wrist and fingers could bend. The arm beyond was locked in position.

Steve's stomach twisted as he looked for the rest of the body. He didn't scream when he found it, but it was a damned near thing. The upper half of a human face was staring at him from about his own height. It had belonged to a middle-aged and somewhat overweight Native American man wearing a yellow hard hat. A piece of masking tape on the hat had _BEAR_ written on it. The man's brown eyes were clouded and distant, and the mouth partly open.

The body this face and hand were attached to was hidden. It was _inside_ the tree.

Steve reached up and touched the man's cheek. It moved like flesh, except where it met the bark. There, it was completely fused with it, immobile. Prodding the free part, Steve found he could feel the texture of the bark underneath where it continued _inside_ the mouth. The section of tree must have been transposed here very suddenly, and this man had been standing in the wrong place when it happened.

The taste of smoke told Steve his mouth was hanging open. He closed it, and swallowed hard to get the bile out of his throat.

"Pilot," he said, "get as close to the helipad as you can. We need immediate evac."

"We haven't even gotten to the main valve yet!" Janet protested.

"We don't know what happened here and we don't know if it's going to happen again!" Steve said. Had the man called Bear – a surname? A nickname? – died instantly when the wood invaded his tissues, or had it taken several minutes for his brain to shut down from lack of oxygen? Had it hurt? "Until we do, it's too dangerous, and I don't think we're going to find anybody alive. Head for the helipad, that's an order!"

"We're not soldiers, Captain," said Hank stiffly.

"No, Hank, do what he says," Janet urged. "He's right."

With the mass of the tree blocking the door, there was no way into or out of the canteen from inside the rig. If Steve went back out the window he'd come in by, he would have to climb the struts to the helipad. Those were cold and slick with frozen spray, and he'd barely made it _down_ without falling. The maps had shown an emergency exit that led to exterior stairs – those went both down, to lifeboats, and up, to the roof. With no power, the red _exit_ sign was not lit, and it took Steve a few moments of searching in the dark to find the door. He bashed it open with the edge of his shield.

A rush of heat flooded over him as he looked out. The ocean below was covered in an oil slick, and that slick was on fire. One of the lifeboats was gone, and another had burned and fallen to pieces in its cradle. Down was not a viable option. Steve pulled down the ladder from the next level, and began to climb.

As he did the heat became less, but the smoke got thicker and the snow and arctic wind began to make themselves felt. He had to go by touch, closing his eyes and keeping his hands on the slippery railings. Turn the corner, climb the stairs. Turn the corner, climb the stairs. God, he hoped the rickety metal held.

Steve was almost at the top when he heard the groan of metal giving way. On instinct, he grabbed at the wall so that he wouldn't fall when the stairs came out from under him, while visions of Bucky dropping into the canyon danced in front of his eyes. There was a loud _clang_ and an impact that shook the rig... but the staircase held, and after a moment Steve opened his eyes again. He found that a pipe had come away from the wall and bent under its own weight, but the wind had pushed it against the emergency stairs and the bottom of it, a hundred feet below, was now wedged in the wreckage of the lifeboat. Steve was about to simply thank his lucky stars and move on, when his eye caught a flash of motion. It wasn't the motion of machinery, or of anything falling apart. This was _organic_ motion. This was something _alive_ on the side of the pipe, six feet below him.

It wasn't a person, of course – it was far too small and frenzied for that. When Steve leaned out over the railing to look at it, he realized that it was a crow, scrabbling and flapping at the pipe as it tried to get free. It had no hope of doing so, though, because half of its right wing was embedded in the metal, just as the man in the canteen had been embedded in the tree. This bird had been wherever the tree came from and was now here, trapped in this freezing, fiery nightmare.

Rationally, stopping to rescue the crow was a stupid thing to do. Steve had to save himself and the Pyms, and the crow was only an animal. It couldn't tell them anything about what had happened here – and yet Steve couldn't bring himself to leave it behind. He took out his pocket knife and hurried back down the last flight of steps, then swung one leg over the edge of the railing so he'd be able to reach the bird. If the rail didn't hold, he and it would both end up in the arctic ocean.

"Hold still," he said, and grabbed the bird by one leg. It didn't like that – it flapped and squirmed, and rather than cawing as Steve would have expected a crow to do, it began letting out high-pitched, wheezing _screams_. Steve held on tight. "I'm sorry, this is gonna hurt," he warned it, and working as quickly as he could, he cut the trapped wing off at the wrist.

The crows screaming got louder as the knife bit into its flesh, but Steve succeeded in getting through the flesh and snapping the delicate bones underneath. He immediately dropped the knife – it fell, forgotten, into the burning ocean below – and grabbed the amputation site to stop it bleeding. Then, with the struggling, shrieking animal clutched to his chest, he ran up the rest of the stairs to the helipad.

"Dr. Pym!" he shouted. "Janet! Where are you?"

There was no reply from either of them. Steve turned in a circle to look, but the smoke rolling off the other half of the rig engulfed him in red-tinged darkness. The roar of the flames was punctuated only by the more muted roar of the sea and the relentless screeching of the bird. Its claws were catching on the silver fabric of his heat suit, threatening to tear it.

"Captain Rogers," came the voice of the helicopter pilot, crackling in the radio link. "I've got the flying ambulance on standby. Are any of you hurt?"

"I don't know. The bird will need stitches," said Steve.

There was a pause. "Bird?"

Steve didn't know what to do. His gut told him that he had to go back and find the Pyms, but he didn't know how he could do that when they were apparently too small to see. Looking for them would also mean dropping the bird, but having taken the trouble to rescue it, Steve didn't have it in him to leave it to die after all. Maybe he could send _it_ up to the helicopter for medical treatment, and _then_ go back for Hank and Janet...

With no warning at all, a tongue of orange flames leaped up from the other side of the _Achilles_. Steve staggered backwards, clutching the bird against his chest. The entire rig shook as an explosion tore through it, and to Steve's horror, parts of it began falling away into the ocean. He watched as the big crane collapsed, followed by a chilling scream of bending metal as the derrick began to fall. Pipes dropped away in slow motion into the foaming water, and with them went sheets of dark material, about a foot thick, that seemed to form a cylinder in the middle of the rig. That hadn't been on any of Peggy's maps.

It was the tree, Steve realized. It was hollow. Until now it and the rig had been supporting each other with their intertwined structures, but now one or the other had reached its breaking point. There couldn't be much time left before the entire rest of the _Achilles_ followed it.

" _Hank_!" he shouted. " _Janet_!"

There was the _pop_ of an impact, and a hole appeared in the helipad beside him as if somebody had shot a bullet into it. Steve jumped aside, and a moment later, the Pyms appeared.

They weren't in good shape. Hank was clutching at an injury to his side with one arm – his other arm was around Janet, whose suit was blackened with soot and her helmet cracked on one side. Her wings were still burning.

"What happened?" Steve shouted over the roar. He wanted to offer help, but to do so he would have had to let go of the damned crow.

"We almost managed to get the valve closed," Hank panted. "But there was a spark... it was my fault..."

"It wasn't your fault, it was an _accident_ ," said Janet. "The only part that was your fault was staying there to do it after he told us to get out!"

"We were _right there_ ," Hank reminded her, head held high. "We couldn't just l..." he noticed what Steve was carrying, and did a double-take. "You stopped to rescue a _bird_?"

The rig shook with another explosion. "Argue later, leave now," Steve ordered. Since the Pyms' radios were obviously fried, he put a hand to his own ear. "Drop the evac harness. We've go three and a bird – two and a bird injured!"

"Bird," said the pilot, still confused.

With Steve's hands full and Janet badly injured, it was Hank who had to secure the line so that the helicopter could stay in position above them while it lowered the harnesses. Steve stayed next to Janet while he worked, keeping an eye on her. Her head was lolling to the side, and he was worried she had a concussion. The damage to her helmet certainly indicated a blow to the head. Had they been caught in the explosion? If so, Janet appeared to have taken the brunt of it.

"What kind of bird is that?" she asked, blinking at the animal in Steve's arms. The bird itself had evidently decided that struggling wouldn't get it anywhere, because it was no longer moving around to screaming – but he could feel its tiny heart hammering, and he suspected it would make a break for freedom the moment he relaxed his grip.

"I think it's a crow," said Steve.

"Can't be a crow." Janet shook her head. "Tail's wrong."

Steve shifted his grip on the animal so he could look, and found that Janet was right. Its tail was much longer than a crow's ought to be. Now that he examined it more closely, its feet weren't particularly crow-like, either. Rather than being bare and scaly, they had a full coat of feathers, like the legs of the owl he and Bucky had once rescued from a tangle of laundry lines between the buildings they'd lived in as children.

"Janet!" called Hank. The helicopter pilot had lowered the harness, and Hank was holding it out. "You go first!"

All three of them were lifted up to the air ambulance one by one. There, medics got to work on Janet's concussion and broken collarbone, and removed an object from Hank's side that looked like some kind of claw with multiple hooks down its length. Hank picked it up and frowned at it, then tossed it aside with a snort.

"What was that?" asked Steve.

"Beetle mandible," said Hank. He lay back on his stretcher and turned his head to look at Janet, lying next to him. She smiled and reached out, and he squeezed her hand before shutting his eyes.

"So... you meant a literal _bird_ ," said one of the medics, coming to collect the animal Steve had rescue.

"I had to amputate part of its left wing," said Steve, handing it over. "I dunno, it was the first thing I found alive in there. I couldn't leave it." If he hadn't cut the animal off the pipe, it would definitely have died.

The medic, a skinny young man with curly dark hair, smiled at him. "I went to school with a girl who works now at Garden City Bird Sanctuary," he said. "Maybe we can find this little guy a home there."

"Thanks," said Steve, and sat back with a sigh. God, Peggy was right: he was a self-sacrificing wanker.

* * *

It was around noon when they arrived back at the SHIELD airstrip. Steve was exhausted, but he hadn't been able to sleep on the way – there was far too much going on in his brain, and he couldn't quiet it. The sun seemed much too bright and the crisp late-autumn air far too warm for Steve's comfort as he descended the ramp to where Peggy was waiting on the runway. Behind him was the curly-haired medic, carrying the bird wrapped in a blanket.

"I'll be seeing you, Captain," said the young man.

"Bye," Steve said with a half-hearted wave, and looked at Peggy.

"Was that a _crow_?" Peggy asked, turning to watch it go by.

"It's the only thing I found alive," Steve said, and put his hands on her shoulders to force her to face him. "Peg. I need to know something."

She raised her eyes to meet his. "I think I can guess."

"And?" he prompted.

Peggy nodded slowly. "Yes. The _Achilles_ is within fifty yards of where Howard's records indicate the tesseract was found."

A cold lump settled into the pit of Steve's stomach. He'd suspected as much. "Why didn't you tell me that before I went out there?" he demanded.

"Because I didn't even _check_ until word came back about what you'd found!" she replied, stepping back out of his arms. "We had no reason to think Tønsberg was anything but a volcano and we had no reason to think this was anything but an oil fire, until we realized we were dealing with something that didn't belong there."

"The volcano didn't belong there, either," Steve said. "Fury said that area's not volcanic!"

"So he did," Peggy nodded. "And the seismologists in Norway agreed with him – he arrived back with their findings earlier this morning. Clearly this and the Tønsberg incident are related, but _I_ didn't know that until an hour ago, so please save the lecture. I've got Pearce running a risk analysis back at the office. We don't know if this might happen anywhere else the tesseract has been."

"Like in the place where you're currently keeping it," Steve realized.

"Yes," she said. "Like there."

Perhaps Steve ought to have napped on the drive back to New York, but he couldn't do that, either. The stress and terror of the trip to _Achilles_ felt like it had drained the life blood out of him, but every time he closed his eyes he saw that man embedded in the tree, or the parts of the rig falling away at his feet and taking Bucky with them. Even when he could ignore that, he couldn't stop worrying about what was happening to the tesseract. If Peggy had it hidden where nobody could be doing anything _to_ it, then it had to be doing this _itself_ – and that was far more terrifying.

Once back in the City, Steve drank three cups of coffee in quick succession and then sat down in Peggy's office with her, Pearce, and Fury. He was starting to hate this room – this was where he'd first spoken to Peggy and Howard after waking up in their fake recovery room. This was where Tony had tried and failed to convince Peggy that something needed to be done to save the astronauts on _Odyssey_. Now here they were again, trying to figure out what to do about the tesseract merging people and machinery with volcanoes and forests. This was a room where bad news happened.

"We have to move it," said Pearce.

"I want to agree," Peggy said, with a reluctant sigh. "The place where it's being kept... there're people there, and important supplies. If something like the _Achilles_ happens there..."

"Wait," Fury put in. "This hasn't happened where the tesseract actually _is_. This has happened in places where it _was_ but isn't _now_. How do we know moving it won't _increase_ the risk? Maybe wherever the tesseract is right now is the safest place to be." He looked at Steve for support, but Steve could only shrug. He didn't know how the tesseract _worked_. That had been Howard's job.

"In that case, why not move our entire HQ there?" asked Pearce.

Peggy rubbed her temples. "Steve?" she asked.

"Stop asking _me_ ," said Steve. "If you'd asked me forty years ago, I would have told you to leave it at the bottom of the ocean, or launch it to the moon. Anything but keeping it here where it can cause more problems."

"I say move it," Pearce repeated. "Keep it somewhere there's no people. Entomb it in concrete or something!"

"No, Agent Fury is right," said Peggy. "We can't do _anything_ until we have more information about what's happening and why. We don't know what's setting off these anomalies and whether we might accidentally trigger another."

"That's because you never let anybody study the thing!" Pearce told her, accusing. "The only one who knew anything about it was Dr... was that guy who'd worked with it for Schmidt. And _he's_ been dead for ten years."

"That's not entirely true," said Peggy. "Howard looked at it a while, before I had it put in storage."

"He's dead too," Pearce reminded her bluntly. There was something very nasty in his voice, as if he were telling Peggy it was her fault.

"He must have had notes," said Steve. Howard had always kept notes. Sometimes nobody else could understand them, but they'd always existed.

"He did," said Peggy. "As far as I know, they were in a trunk of things he wanted me to keep for him. I was told not to open it, though. It wasn't _for_ me." She looked at Steve, and their eyes met.

Steve immediately understood what she was saying. "I'll call him," he said, standing up. "Where's the phone?" He went to Peggy's desk and lifted the receiver from the cradle.

"You really should just hire the kid," said Pearce. "It would be so much easier to keep an eye on him."

"He's only sixteen," Peggy chided. "Maybe when he's older, and can properly evaluate whether he's interested. But by then he'll have his father's company to run, too."

Steve wedged the phone between his chin and his shoulder as he dialed. As far as _he_ could tell, Tony Stark was far more interested in things like going to space than he was in his father's business, but Peggy was right, too. As brilliant as Tony was, he was still just a kid. Steve suspected that Howard had never really _allowed_ his son to be a child, and Tony deserved a little more time before having adulthood forced on him.

Tony picked up the phone in Steve's apartment halfway through the second ring. "Hello?" he asked, and in a tone of semi-desperation, added, "Mrs. Pym?"

"No, it's me," said Steve. "Tony, we need you to come down to SHIELD. We've got a job for you."


	6. Chapter 6: Greatest Creation

Tony arrived in Peggy's office less than an hour later. Last time he'd come to the building, back in the spring, he'd worn a suit and tie in the effort to look professional and respectable. Today he was in jeans and chucks and a red and yellow Adidas jacket, with his hair sticking out in all directions. Even so, he was standing up straight with his thumbs hooked in his belt, which Steve recognized as Howard's usual posture when he was discussing something important. He wondered if it were natural or deliberate.

Before Steve could greet Tony, Peggy had already stepped forward, her eyes wide in horror. "Where is Hope Pym?" she demanded. "You didn't leave her along in Steve's apartment, did you?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous! I left her with Mrs. Wilson next door. Are the Pyms okay?" he asked, and it sounded as if he were at least a little bit honestly worried about them, rather than just desperate to get out of babysitting duty. He must know them fairly well, Steve realized, if Hank and Janet were willing to trust their daughter to him care.

"They're recovering," said Peggy. "Hank should be able to take Hope home tomorrow. Janet's going to be in the hospital for a few more days. She had some nasty burns."

Steve stepped forward. "We need a favour, Tony."

Tony nodded. "You need me to look at more of Dad's work," he guessed. "That's what you needed last time."

"You're right," Peggy said. "We want you to look at his notes on the tesseract. He made a more thorough study of it than anybody except perhaps Dr. Zola, but Zola didn't leave any notes."

"At least, not where we can find them," said Pearce. While Steve and Peggy had gone to the door to greet Tony, he was still sitting in one of the armchairs in front of the desk.

"We need you to figure out if something may have activated the tesseract," Peggy went on. "Steve can explain to you what's happening better than I can."

Tony's eyes went wide. "Am I gonna get to _see_ it?" he asked, and Steve wondered what he was thinking. Was he interested in the tesseract as a thing his father had studied, or as the thing that had created the version of Schmidt they'd met in orbit? Was he thinking of it as an object of interest or an object of terror? Or both?

"No," Peggy said quickly. "Nobody sees it."

"Even _I_ don't know where it is," Steve agreed, in case Tony took offense.

"Just look at his math," said Peggy. "And if that's not enough... well, we'll see." She was good at hiding her emotions, but Steve remembered a time when she'd been less so, and the way she bit her lip for a moment told him she was deeply uncomfortable with the idea.

Tony followed them into the elevator, down to the workrooms and filing areas. "Why me?" he asked. "I know Dad could do some _wicked_ math, but you've gotta have smart people around here. This isn't like last time when you had something even _he_ couldn't figure out."

"This is something he specifically wanted _you_ to have," Peggy said.

"So why did he leave it here, then?"

"Because your father didn't trust very many people," she said. "He trusted me."

Peggy got Tony settled down in a workroom – not the same one where he'd decoded the HYDRA message pointing them to the false metashapes, but a very similar one – and brought in an old steamer trunk, which she unlocked as if it contained a great treasure. Inside were piles of notebooks, reels of film, and a few random objects like an old bomber jacket and a stack of _Captain America_ comics. Steve quickly looked away, finding himself embarrassed by even the _idea_ of Tony reading those.

"Everything Howard knew about the tesseract is in these notes," said Peggy. "And the rest... the rest is yours."

Tony swallowed. He looked way more daunted by this than he had by the message from space. That had been merely a mathematical challenge. This was _personal_. "Okay," he said. "Can I order a pizza?"

"No, but I'll have somebody pick one up for you," Peggy told him. "And I'll send in a projector so you can look at the films if you want to."

"Right. Thanks." Tony had not moved yet. He was just standing there, staring into the trunk as if it were a bottomless well.

"If you need anything else, don't be afraid to ask for it," Peggy added. "You're not sitting an examination, you know."

"I know," Tony said with a nod.

Peggy left, and Tony took off his jacket and hung it off the back of a chair before starting to unpack things from their boxes. The notebooks contained a few sketches, mostly wiring schematics and sets of curved lines that Steve vaguely recognized as magnetic fields, but mostly there were page upon page of complex mathematics, the kind with more letters than numbers. Steve, who'd dropped out of school at fourteen, when his mother got sick, couldn't have begun to understand it. Tony flipped through the first couple and set them aside, before focusing on the third.

"Here we go," he said. "This is the tesseract."

"How can you tell?" asked Steve.

"Everything's raised to the fourth power instead of the third." Tony sat down at the table, opened a can of soda, and began unfolding sheets that had been tucked between the pages of the notebook. "Four dimensions. So what's it been doing that Madame Director's so worried about? Does it have to do with the volcano in Norway?"

"Yeah." Steve sat down across from him. "And with the fire on the _Achilles_ , too." He described what they'd found in both locations: a volcano where no such thing should have been, and a giant tree hundreds of miles from any forest. He avoided any mention of the man in the canteen – Steve knew he would never rid himself of the memory of that, and didn't want to inflict it on anybody else – but he did describe the black bird with its trapped wing. Judging from Tony's expression as he listened, that was more than horrifying enough.

"Misdirected teleportation," said Tony. "That's nasty."

"Something tells me you've seen a movie about it," Steve observed.

"Never about that exactly." Tony frowned thoughtfully. "I mean, there's _The Fly_ , but neither the original _nor_ the remake dealt with it quite like that. Don't tell Mom I saw the new one," he added. "She told me it would give me nightmares."

"Did it?" asked Steve.

"Of course not," said Tony, just a little too quickly.

"Right." Steve yawned, and Tony glanced up at him.

"You should probably go home and get some sleep," he said, as if he were the adult and Steve the child.

"Should I?" Steve asked. "I assume you're the expert on needing sleep and not getting any." He was familiar with Tony's nocturnal study and brainstorming habits.

"I am," Tony said, not at all bothered by the sarcasm. "And you should."

Steve _was_ exhausted, and he doubted he was going to be any help with what Tony would be working on here. "Well, I always trust the experts," he said, getting to his feet. "I'll stop by again alter today. Good luck with your math." He could check in on the Pyms later, too, and maybe bring Hope from the Wilsons' if Hank hadn't already picked her up by then.

"Math is never about luck. Not even probability math," said Tony firmly. His head was down now, the pencil in his hand moving across the paper as he traced the outlines of his father's equations.

On the way out, Steve met Peggy coming back in with two AV personnel. They were bringing the projector she'd promised Tony, as well as a large pizza and a few other items she'd thought he might find useful. She nodded to Steve and then walked past him, but he caught her sleeve.

"Peggy," he said, "can you promise me one thing?"

"I'll do my best," she replied warily.

She'd always been cautious, he'd noticed, about making promises she might not be able to keep. "Promise me the tesseract has never been in this building. If it has, we need to find Tony someplace else to work." The memory of touching the dead oil worker's cheek and feeling the bark inside it seemed to be lingering on his fingers.

"Never," Peggy said immediately. "This building didn't yet exist when we brought it back, and we took it elsewhere for safekeeping."

"All right." Steve nodded, relieved. "I'll see you later."

There was one more chance meeting waiting for Steve before he left that afternoon. His assigned stall in the underground parking garage was right next to Nick Fury's, and he got to his car to find Fury just climbing into his own.

"How was Europe?" asked Steve, unlocking the driver's side door.

"European," Fury replied. "And cold as hell. They said some kind of 'polar vortex' had moved in. Eva Natter wouldn't be walking around wearing a bedsheet in _that_ , believe me."

Steve paused. "Did _you_ know that Eva's a spy?" he asked.

Fury had been about to close the car door. He paused with his hand on the grip, and looked up at Steve in apparently honest surprise. "Man, I'm pretty sure _Cosmo_ magazine knows she's a spy! You didn't?"

"No! Nobody tells _me_ anything!" Steve groused. "If you knew she was a spy, why did you tell me to call her?"

"Because she 'spies' by hanging around with drunk old men who want to feel better about their erectile dysfunction," said Fury. "I figured you could handle her."

"I appreciate your faith in my virility." Steve climbed into his car, then stared out the windshield at the concrete wall for a few moments and sighed. It wasn't Fury's fault – he'd just assumed Steve knew something that was apparently common knowledge in the intelligence community. But it did make Steve all the more conscious of the idea of _trust_ , and how few people he had any in anymore. He mostly trusted Peggy and Fury, but knew that both of them would choose national security over him in a heartbeat. That was exactly as it should be, and yet... god, he missed Bucky. Steve had always been able to count on Bucky to tell him the truth, even if it wasn't a truth he wanted to hear. The two of them had been brutally honest with each other since childhood and that had never changed.

Bucky wasn't here, though. Bucky had been dead for forty years – but in Steve's mind it had only been six months, and he hadn't yet had the time to stop blaming himself, any more than he'd stopped blaming himself for what had happened to Howard. Maybe he never would.

* * *

When Steve arrived home, the light was blinking on his answering machine, telling him he had messages. He pressed the button and heard the tape squeal as it rewound before playing them.

"Hello," said the familiar voice of Maria Stark. "Are you there, Tony? It's Mama. I just wanted to check in and make sure you're all right, and to ask when you're coming home. We miss you, _bambino_. Zeke misses you. He was looking forward to having a big brother. Please call. _Ti amo_."

Steve tossed his jacket onto the sofa and pulled his shirt off. He wondered if Tony had listened to the message. Something told him Tony had been home when the call was made, and had listened to it as it was recorded but had not picked up the phone.

The machine beeped and a second message started to play. "Hi, Steve, it's Eva. I wanted to let you know, I'm doing some shots at Cleopatra's Needle the day after tomorrow. If you want to stop by, I'll tell the crew to expect you. I'm not mad. You're a busy guy. Call me at the hotel if you want."

Steve unzipped his jeans and stepped out of them, then let himself fall into bed. He would remind Tony that his mother had called, but that was Tony's own issue and Tony could deal with it. As for Eva... Steve _did_ need to talk to Eva, but not right now. He needed a day or so to process what he'd learned about her, and then he'd be able to have a civil conversation with her instead of getting angry.

He honestly wasn't sure if he'd be able to sleep or not. Exhaustion was still warring with the horror of what he'd seen, and as Steve shut his eyes, he still wasn't sure which would win. It seemed he was more tired than he was traumatized, however, because the next thing he knew, it was evening. Low, orange sunlight was streaming in his west-facing window directly onto his face, and he was wide awake, staring at the ceiling.

Exactly what kind of nightmare he'd woke from, he couldn't quite remember. There were only flashes of people trapped in the walls of buildings calling for him to help them, of Bucky falling off the train to his death only to be snatched away by a huge black bird, and of Tony tumbling head-over-heels into space, never to be seen again. It took a few minutes for Steve to catch his breath, and then he sat up slowly and ran his hands through his hair, feeling sick.

He'd heard the phrase 'seen too much' a lot during the war, mostly to explain the actions of men who'd hanged or shot themselves. It made him wonder if he might end the same way, only to realize that from the rest of the world's point of view, he _had_. For forty years, everybody had thought Steve had committed suicide by crashing the _Valkyrie_. Had they said that about him, that he'd _seen too much_? If so, what would they have thought of the idea that he would someday come back, only to see even more horror?

Once his breathing had slowed and his heart had stopped pounding in his ears, Steve heaved himself out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom. There he splashed some water on his face and brushed his teeth, and checked the time on a watch he kept lying in there for that purpose. It was six pm, which agreed with the suggestion of his gurgling stomach: suppertime. As he tried to remember what he had in the fridge, Steve couldn't help thinking that there was something he'd forgotten, something he really should take care of, but hadn't. What was it?

It was only as he was getting dressed that he realized – Tony had said he'd left Hope Pym with the Wilsons. Was she still there? Steve quickly put on a jacket and shoes, and went to knock on the door.

Darlene opened it. It tended to be cold in the building in winter, and she was wearing an oversized sweater with an astonishingly bright paisley pattern. "Oh, Steve!" she said. "Are you all right?"  
He wondered if he looked terrible, or if she'd merely wondered where he'd been. Probably the latter – the serum mean Steve recovered pretty quickly from most things, physically if not mentally. "I'm fine," he lied. "Is Hope still here?"

Darlene turned to look over her shoulder. Steve followed her gaze, and found Hope sitting on the sofa, reading a storybook to baby Sam. Sam was much more interested in the soft toy he was chewing on.

"Hope, sweetie, Captain Rogers is here to take you home!" Darlene called. She looked back at Steve and lowered her voice. "All Tony could tell us was that her parents couldn't come for her yet. Did something happen to them?"

"Last I heard, her father should be able to take her home soon," said Steve. "I don't know about her mother." He would take her back to SHIELD with him, he decided, and ask after the Pyms there. If they couldn't leave the hospital yet, maybe he could at least find her a more willing babysitter.

Hope gathered up her things and put them in her backpack, then said a polite goodbye and thank-you to Mrs. Wilson before joining Steve on their way to the elevator.

"Are Mom and Dad okay?" she asked.

Steve couldn't tell her he didn't know. That would only scare her. "They're fine," he said.

The little girl cocked her head. "I think you're lying," she said.

It figured. "Am I really that obvious?" Steve asked.

"Yeah," said Hope, nodding seriously.

"I was afraid of that," he sighed. "I'm gonna take you to see Madame Director, and she'll know."

* * *

Peggy tended to work late, and was still in her office when Steve knocked. She answered the door with a smile, but instead of greeting Steve, she looked down at the little girl with the brown pigtails.

"Hello, Hope," she said. "Are you looking for your parents?"

"Yeah," said Hope quietly. "Are they here?"

"Your Daddy is checking out of the hospital right now," Peggy promised her. "You won't be able to hug him for a while because he's got some stitches, but he can come home and look after you until your Mum's ready to come back, too. They're both going to be just fine."

Hope nodded. She may not have believed Steve, but she seemed to trust Peggy. Smart girl, Steve thought.

"Would you like to go meet your Dad at the hospital?" Peggy asked.

"Yes, please," the girl said politely.

"All right, I'll take you there myself." Peggy reached for Hope's hand.

"Has Tony found anything?" Steve asked, before Peggy could vanish on him.

"He hasn't called me," she replied. "I suspect he's fallen asleep down there, but I haven't been to check. I don't want him to feel too much pressure. If you want to check on him, the access code is the usual."

"Thanks," said Steve. "See you, Hope."

"Goodbye, Captain Rogers," said Hope. The formal way she used his name made him wonder if she had any idea who he was. Probably not – she'd only seen him twice before, once on the day he woke up, and once at Howard Stark's funeral. He was just somebody her parents worked with.

Steve was yawning again as he headed downstairs to look in on Tony. That was no good. He was going to have to tell Tony his mother had called, and he wasn't sure how that was going to go but he _did_ want to be fully awake for it. He punched in the code, and let himself into the workroom.

Inside the lights were off, and one of Howard's films was playing. Tony was sitting with his arms folded on the table and his head resting on them. Peggy was probably right – he'd fallen asleep.

Steve came a couple of steps closer. The film showed Howard standing in front of a table talking. This didn't look like the Howard Steve remembered _or_ the one he'd woken up to. Instead, it was Howard ten or fifteen years ago, probably shortly after his plane crash and plastic surgery. The features were closer to 80's Howard's than to the softer ones Steve remembered from 40's Howard, but his hair was still dark, and there was a note of the younger Howard's optimism still left in his voice.

It was what he was _saying_ , though, that really caught Steve's attention.

"Tony," Howard said seriously, "you're too young to understand this right now, so I thought I would put it on film for you." He gestured to a model city on the table behind him, and after a moment Steve recognized it as the Stark Expo he and Bucky had attended that fateful evening in 1943. "I built this for _you_ , and someday, you'll realize that it represents a whole lot more than just people's inventions. It represents my life's work. This is the key to the future. I'm limited by the technology of my time, but one day you'll figure this out, and when you do, you will change the world." He was looking right into the camera now, with an earnest sincerity in his eyes that Steve had rarely seen. "What is and will always be my greatest creation... is you."

Tony sat up a little, and his arm came up and stopped the film. He stood and began winding the reels back to play the sequence over again, then dropped them in surprise as he realized Steve was watching. They fell to the floor in a tangle of film.

For a moment Tony just stared, tears shining on his cheeks. "Don't you _ever_ knock?" he demanded, voice choked with emotion. " _Anywhere_?"

"I'm sorry. I thought you were asleep." Steve bent down to pick up the film.

Tony kicked it. One of the reels went bouncing across the room, unwinding as it went. "His greatest creation! Did you hear that?" He pointed at the now-dark screen. "His _greatest creation_! That's all I ever was, was the guy who was gonna finish his shit for him someday! They only had me because he thought he wouldn't live long enough"

"That's not true," said Steve.

"It _is_ true! You heard him! His life's work, and I'm supposed to finish it... and sure enough, that's what I'm _doing_!" Tony wiped his nose on his sleeve and gestured to the walls of the room – the whiteboards were covered with Howard's complicated four-dimensional mathematics. In one place he'd run out of room and had taped strips of printer paper to the wall to continue his calculations. "Here I am, finishing what he couldn't, just like he fucking _planned_!" He sat down heavily in the chair again and covered his face.

Steve put a hand on his back. "That's not what he meant," he said. How was he going to explain this? Tony hated platitudes, but platitudes were all that was coming to Steve's mind right now. _He just didn't know how to show it_ was a cliché, but it was _true_...

"Well, what _did_ he mean, then?" Tony demanded. "You don't know, because when you knew Dad I wasn't born yet! And now we can't ask him, all we've got is _that_. _That's_ the message he decided to leave for me. Not _I'm proud of you_ , just _get to work_!"

Steve pulled up another chair and put an arm around Tony's shoulders. He half expected the young man to lash out at him, but instead Tony leaned his head on Steve's shoulder and wept loud, raw, messy tears.

"I hate him. I _hate_ him," Tony whimpered into Steve's shirt.

That wasn't true, Steve thought. Tony didn't hate his father, or at least if he did, it wasn't in the same way as he hated the last person he'd said that about, Obadiah Stane. What Tony had heard as _get to work_ was probably the closest to _I love you_ that the older, more embittered Howard Stark of the 70's and 80's could have come. Tony would never believe that, though, and it probably wasn't even what he was actually upset about. The real problem wasn't what Howard had _said_ but the fact that, as Tony had just pointed out, they would never be able to _talk_ to him about it.

Steve still blamed himself for that at least partially. He hadn't pulled the trigger, but if he hadn't found the tapes in Dvenadstat, the Russians wouldn't have had a reason to want Howard killed. Fortunately, there was somebody else he could take it out on.

"I'm gonna find him, Tony," Steve promised. "With or without Fyodorova, I'll find the Winter Soldier." He would get revenge for both of them. "Your Mom called," he added. "She misses you."

"I'm amazed Obi _let_ her," Tony grumbled, his voice muffled by Steve's shoulder. A few more moments went by, then he sat up and wiped his face again, this time on the edge of his shirt. "The Russian girls... they wanted help with something in the arctic, right?" he asked, sniffling hard to clear his nose.

"Yeah," said Steve. He hadn't thought of that before, but Tønsberg and the _Achilles_ had both been fairly far north – Norway and Canada. "You think there's a connection?"

"Maybe." Tony sniffed again, then got up and went to retrieve a polar projection map out from under a pile of papers. "The arctic circle is at sixty degrees north. The oil rig was well inside that, and the volcano in Norway only just outside." He'd marked the locations in red pen. "The Nazis were interested in the north pole. Supposedly Hitler thought there was a doorway to the centre of the Earth there, and he could climb in and meet dinosaur people with advanced weapons or something."

That was news to Steve, but with some of the crazy things HYDRA and Thule had been up to, it didn't seem too unlikely. "Did he find it?" he asked.

"No, because it's bullshit," said Tony. He sniffed again, but he already seemed much calmer now that the subject had changed. Tony was a lot like Howard in many important ways: both men used _work_ as a way to cope with their emotions. After a disappointment or defeat during the war, Howard had always ended up in his workshop, poring over diagrams and equations and trying to figure out how he could keep whatever had happened from ever happening again. "But if you're gonna hide a post-war Nazi base, the arctic seems like a good spot. They'd already have had guys up there."

Steve shivered. "You think HYDRA is making this happen? How?"

"I dunno," said Tony, "but _somebody's_ gotta be making it happen, because the tesseract isn't doing it on its own." He dragged over one of the notebooks. There was a diagram drawn on the open page: a cube within a cube, with the corners of the inner shape connected to the outer one by lines. All around it was math with the powers of four Tony had mentioned earlier. "According to Dad's notes, Dr. Zola's theory was that the cube itself was just a containment unit for something else. It had to be a higher-dimensional shape because whatever's inside doesn't exist within normal space-time. There might be as many as _twelve_ dimensions going on in there. The cube was intended to isolate the object and make it easier to use."

"It didn't work very well," said Steve. The tesseract, 'containment unit' and all, had torn Schmidt apart when he'd touched it.

"Maybe it worked well enough for whoever built it," said Tony, "because I don't think that was humans. As near as Dad could figure..." he shuffled some papers, and found one with a diagram of balls and sticks fit together in complicated ways. "The cube is made of some kind of metal-ceramic polymer that _reflects_ almost no light but has a very high _refractive_ index, which shouldn't really be possible, but that's not important right now. He tried to duplicate it, but couldn't figure out how. He thought somebody would have had to find a way to assemble it atom by atom, because the whole thing is basically one big molecule. Like the General Products Hull in the _Ringworld_ books." He paused and looked up at Steve.

"Just pretend I know what that is and go on," said Steve.

Tony nodded. "It releases the energy inside when it comes in contact with certain kinds of chain carbon compounds," he went on. "Dr. Zola's equipment for getting energy out of it seems to have used compressed graphite as a conductor, and it leaked a lot. Diamond dust would be better. Smaller gaps between the atoms. Our problem, however, is that fibrillar collagen is similar enough to conduct it the same way, and human skin ad connective tissue are mostly collagen. That's why I think it must've been built by aliens," he explained. "Whatever decided this was a good way to contain the thing couldn't have been made out of carbon."

"So to make it do the teleportation, somebody would have to _touch_ it," Steve said.

"Either that or break the box," said Tony. "I can't imagine what would break it, though. You'd have to open the bonds between the atoms and that's really hard. Dad never did the calculation, but according to _my_ math..." he crossed the room to roll up the screen he'd been watching Howard's movie on, revealing another whiteboard behind it. A very large number was circled in red in the lower right corner. "It's melting point is about twenty million Kelvin. That's hotter than the center of the sun."

Peggy had said that Howard considered the tesseract indestructible, and this seemed to confirm the idea – there was no way in the cosmos to get _rid_ of the damned thing. Even so, there was something reassuring about the fact that Tony could analyze it. Wartime intelligence had suggested that Schmidt considered the tesseract supernatural, but Tony was able to treat it as an object that obeyed at least _most_ of the laws of physics. That made Steve feel better about knowing they still had it. Anything that could be _studied_ could be _understood_ , and anything that could be _understood_ could be _managed_.

"Peggy wanted to move it, but not until we made sure that was a good idea," said Steve. "If somebody's gotten at it, it might be. Have you told her about any of this?"

Tony shook his head. "I got distracted," he said, glancing at the roll that stored the screen.

"Then we need to call her." Steve stood up. "She's the only one who knows where the tesseract is." She would know who was guarding it and who had access to it. If somebody had figured out the secret she'd worked so hard to keep, she was the best person to discover who that was and what they could do about it. "Grab whatever you need to prove your point."

"She's gonna listen to me this time, right?" asked Tony.

"She listened to you last time," Steve reminded him. "She was just surprised by what we decided to do about it." Peggy had _expected_ Steve to do something reckless, but going into orbit on a hijacked shuttle was not what she'd had in mind.

Tony actually smiled at that, though his eyes were still red at the edges. "How many people have ever managed to surprise Madame Director?"

"Not very many," Steve said, smiling back.


	7. Chapter 7: Shots Fired

When Steve called Peggy a male voice answered – it was neither Dum-Dum nor Peggy's son Stephen, and when Steve asked, it identified itself as 'Mike'.

"You want to talk to Peggy?" this man said. "Just a sec." Steve heard the muffled sound of a hand over the receiver. "Aunt Peggy? Phone for you."

"Thanks," said her distant voice. "Candy, take Sharon, would you?" A moment later she was on the phone, loud and clear. "Hello, this is Mrs. Dugan."

Steve had never had to call her at home before, and hadn't realized she would answer like that. It took him a moment to adjust to the idea. "Hi, Peggy, it's me," he said. "Tony and I have news."

"Oh!" she said. "All right, I'll be there as quickly as I can. Wait in my office." And she put the phone down without even a goodbye. Steve hung up, too, grateful that Peggy wasn't there to see the uncomfortable set of his shoulders as he did. Every time he'd thought he was used to the idea that she wasn't the Peggy he'd known, something like this would come up and remind him that she'd lived a whole lifetime while he was frozen. Would that _ever_ not bother him?

Probably not.

Despite having said she'd be as fast as she could, it took Peggy over an hour to get back to SHIELD from her home. Tony fidgeted while they waited, and Steve doodled to keep himself from doing the same, drawing all over the back of one of Tony's notebooks. He started with squares and circle and squiggles, but soon he was drawing the spray of the sea crashing against the giant hollow canisters that kept the _Achilles_ afloat, the tangle of pipes, and the trapped bird. When he realized he was outlining the face of the man embedded in the tree trunk, he quickly scribbled it out and turned the book over. That was not an image he wanted to revisit.

Voices outside alerted them to Peggy's return, and Steve and Tony both stood up to watch her enter the room. She walked in with her secretary and Agent Pearce in tow, and greeted them with polite smiles. She was wearing her work clothes, Steve noticed – a navy blue blazer and matching skirt. She'd probably changed before leaving home.

"Hope's father took her home," Peggy told Steve. "Thank you both again for looking after her. Now." She sat down at her desk. "What's this news you have for me?"

Steve looked at Tony, and Tony cleared his throat and stepped forward. "Here's what I was able to figure out," he said, and began laying papers out on the table.

Peggy had probably already been familiar with Howard's and Dr. Zola's theories about the tesseract, but she still listened carefully as Tony went over them again. When he started to explain his own calculations and conclusions, however, she began to look increasingly worried.

"Since the tesseract warps space, it _could_ do what Captain Rogers described," Tony said. "The thing is, because of the containment unit, it couldn't do it all by itself. Something must have breached the containment. And since the unit itself is pretty much indestructible by anything short of throwing it into a black hole, the only way to do that is if somebody's accessing it on purpose."

"For what reason?" Peggy asked. "Are you saying that Tønsberg and _Achilles_ were deliberate attacks?"

"I have no idea," Tony admitted. "They might be side effects of trying to do something else. I figure somebody ought to go check on it, though, and Captain Rogers says you're the only one who knows where it is..."

"Of course." She nodded. "I'll go take a look immediately. Is there anything else?" she asked.

"That's the gist of it. If you want me to type it up as a proper report, I can," Tony offered. He reached out a tentative hand, then dropped it to his side again.

Peggy noticed. "What is it?" she asked.

"Madame Director." Tony took a deep breath. "Um. Did you ever look at any of that stuff yourself?"

She hesitated a moment. "No," she said. "Your father left that for _you_. Me looking at it would have been an invasion of privacy."

Tony nodded, but Steve did not. That little pause had spoke volumes, and Steve was positive that Peggy had gone through every page of Howard's notes herself, had watched every frame of that film several times, and knew _exactly_ why Tony had asked the question. Steve also knew why she'd chosen to lie: she felt it wasn't her place to try to tell Tony what his father had thought of him. Or maybe she was afraid of alienating him when they needed his input.

She caught Steve's eye, and realized that he knew. Steve didn't react, for fear Tony would notice.

"Thank you again, Mr. Stark," said Peggy formally. "Go home and get some rest."

"I'm not tired," Tony replied. "I _am_ starving, though."

Another way in which Tony was like his father – when he got his teeth into a problem, he would keep working at it to the exclusion of all else, including sometimes food and sleep. Steve smiled and put an arm around Tony's shoulders. "Let's go get you something," he said.

While Peggy made a series of phone calls, Steve and Tony left her office to go back downstairs. Pearce went with them, and while all three waited for the elevator, he cleared his throat and said, "Captain Rogers?"

"Yeah?" asked Steve.

"If _you_ had to hide the tesseract," Pearce said, "where would _you_ put it?"

Steve thought about it for a moment. "I... I don't know," he admitted. "Someplace even _I_ could never get it back."

"Bottom of the Marianas trench," said Tony. "Just drop it off a boat and let it fall. Or shoot it into space, let it crash into the planet Jupiter," he suggested. "It would fall into the clouds and it wouldn't actually get crushed or burned up, but nobody could ever get it back. You'd need a spacecraft as strong as the tesseract itself to go in after it, and we can't build anything like that. Not yet, anyway."

That was the best idea Steve had heard yet, but Pearce just nodded glumly. "I can't see Madame Director going for either of those options," he observed. "She wants to hang onto the thing, in case we have to use it someday."

"I don't think she'd use it," said Steve. Peggy knew what the tesseract could _do_ far too well to ever do that. She was more worried about _other_ people finding and using it.

"No?" asked Pearce. "I wouldn't be so sure, myself."

Steve and Tony said goodbye to Pearce in the parking garage, and Steve climbed into the car to drive himself and Tony back to his apartment.

"What do you want to eat?" he asked, starting the car.

"Cheeseburger," Tony decided. "More than one. It's been a two-cheeseburger kind of a day."

"All right, on one condition," said Steve. "I want you to call your Mom first thing tomorrow morning. She's worried about you."

Tony groaned.

"Tony," said Steve, a warning in his voice. "She won't believe me if _I_ tell her I haven't taken you anywhere dangerous. I want you to tell her yourself. I'm covering my own ass here." This was not quite true, but Steve was, slowly, starting to figure out how to handle Tony. Tony needed to be spoken to in a particular way. He needed choices – if he were given _orders_ , he would straight-up refuse out of sheer spite. Maria probably understood that, but Steve doubted Howard ever had. Stane certainly didn't.

"All right," sighed Tony. "What about you? Are you gonna call Eva Natter? Because she left you a message, too."

Steve made a mental note – as he'd suspected, Tony had been listening to the machine when it picked up. "I don't know," he said. "Peggy told me she's a spy."

"What?" Tony sat up as they turned out of the parking garage onto the street. It was dark now, and snow was falling again. "Really?"

"Yeah," said Steve. "A very small-time one, but still."

"Man, that's awesome!" Tony laughed. "Supermodel slash spy – she's practically a Bond girl! That's great! You really need to meet some women who aren't spies!"

"I know," said Steve. "Apparently I've never been good at that."

* * *

They picked up take-out at a Burger King, and then despite Tony saying that he wasn't tired, as soon as they arrived back at the apartment he flopped on his back on the sofa and was asleep within minutes. Steve didn't disturb him. It had been a long day for him.

In the morning, Steve found Tony sitting on the sofa eating leftover French fries for breakfast. Steve cleared his throat and pointed towards the phone.

Tony had clearly hoped Steve would forget, but he also knew that he would not win a contest of wills with Captain America. He grunted as he got up and arched his back in a stretch, then shuffled over to the phone. "You're not gonna sit there and _watch_ , are you?" he asked as he picked up the receiver. "Don't you trust me?"

That was a loaded question if Steve had ever heard one. "I trust you," he said, "but I need to use the phone next and call Eva, remember?" Once again, this was a bit of a lie. Steve trusted Tony to figure out what was going on with the tesseract. He even trusted him to build parts for spaceships. He was not entirely sure he trusted him to call his mother when he was told to.

"Right." Tony's shoulders slumped, then stiffened again as he heard the phone pick up. "Hi," he said. "It's Tony. Can I talk to Mom?"

Steve got up and went to put the coffee on. He'd wanted to make sure Tony actually made the call, but he wasn't going to listen in on the actual conversation, because that was none of his business. He waited in the kitchen for about fifteen or twenty minutes, making himself a bacon-and-egg sandwich and flipping absently through the newspaper, while Tony's voice in the living room got gradually louder and louder.

Just as Steve was wondering if maybe he _should_ have stayed and listened, there was the jingling crash of the phone being violently hung up, and Tony shouted, "phone's free!" A moment later there was another loud sound, this one the bang of a slamming door.

When Steve opened the door to the living room, he found it empty – Tony must have gone out again. He also had to be coming back, since his duffel bag was still on the floor beside the sofa. Steve wondered how many days' worth of clothes he'd brought with him. Maybe they ought to make a trip to the laundromat.

He looked at the phone for a moment, then sighed and picked it up. Tony had called his mother when he'd been told to, even if it hadn't gone very well. Steve probably _should_ call Eva. He needed to talk to her, even if only to formally nip the relationship in the bud.

Steve dialed the number for the hotel and asked for Ms. Cotton. A female voice answered.

"Hello?" it asked. It was not Eva.

"Hi," said Steve. "Um, do I have the right room? I'm looking for Eva Natter." Maybe she'd had to leave the city for some reason.

"Oh, is this Captain America?" the woman asked eagerly. "Miss Natter's at the park doing a shoot today! Do you want to leave a message for her?"

Steve remembered that – her phone message had said she was having some photos taken around Cleopatra's Needle. "No, I'll go see her myself," he decided. "Thanks. Um. Who am I talking to?"

"I'm Belinda. I'm Herr Baumhauer's secretary," the woman said. "If you do stop by, can I get an autograph? My grandfather met you during the war," she added. "He said you knocked out his four front teeth with a single punch!"

"I'll think about it," Steve said. This, too, was a lie. "Thanks."

He hung up and went to get dressed. Bucky had once told Steve never to break up with a girl over the phone. If he'd been here now, he probably would have said that went double for leaving a message with her agent's secretary. Steve wasn't sure he could _break up_ with Eva when they'd never even really been together – their one attempt at a date having ended before it could begin – but that was still no reason to be rude.

* * *

The snow that had fallen overnight was now a thick, damp layer over everything. The streets were already sloppy and brown, where they weren't stained blue by the salt trucks, but in Central Park things were still fresh and white, glittering in the morning sun. Cleopatra's needle had been roped off from visitors, and people were setting up screens to reflect the photographers' lights and moving the snow around with brooms and shovels so it would be in just the right places. Eva herself was not visible.

"I'm sorry, Sir," one of the security people said, "you can't come in here."

"I can wait," Steve said. "Can somebody tell Miss Natter that Captain Rogers wants to talk to her? When she's got a minute, of course." She was working. He wasn't about to barge in.

Somebody went to do so, and a few minutes later a couple of security guards escorted Steve down the path to a couple of tents they had set up by East Drive, in the shadow of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Eva was inside, dressed in a long coat with a big fake fur collar, drinking a cup of ice water and fanning herself with a magazine. She smiled when she saw Steve.

"It's _much_ too warm out to be wearing all this!" she said. "I feel like I want to go jump in the icy pond just to cool off!" Then she saw Steve's serious expression, and her smile faded. "Is something wrong?"

"Maybe." Steve came closer. "I had a talk with my boss the other night, the director of SHIELD. She said... well, she said you're a spy." He wondered if Eva would deny it.

She didn't. Instead she gave a high-pitched nervous giggle and turned pink, embarrassed. Steve remembered her elegant chuckle at his attempted jokes the night they'd danced at Bob Barnum's party, and wondered why he'd never heard her laugh like _that_ again. "It's not really _spying_ , is it?" Eva asked. "I mean, Bob and his friends just like to show off and they talk too much. All I do is listen. That's not spying, that's _gossip_. Right?" She giggled again.

"Would you still do it if nobody was paying you?" asked Steve.

That made her uncomfortable. "Well... not with Bob Barnum, anyway," she admitted. "He's nothing but hands."

"Then it's spying," said Steve firmly.

Eva lowered her head for a minute, then raised it again. "Well, what about your boss?" she asked, defensive. "She's a spy, too, right?"

"Yeah, she is," Steve said. "Most of the women I know are." The only non-spy he could think of that he knew halfway well was Maria Stark. Even Indira Bhavana probably didn't count – her last letter had mentioned the launch of an 'intelligence satellite'. "It's not that I don't like you, Eva, or that I don't think you're beautiful." God, this was awkward. "I just don't think I'll ever be able to _trust_ you."

"But that's different!" she protested. "You're nothing like Bob Barnum!"

"How do I know you don't say the same thing to him about me?" Steve pointed out. "We're both Americans, and I'm sure the _Volkskammer_ is very interested in what _both_ of us are up to."

She slumped a bit. "I'm guessing you don't want to see me again, then," she said, and for a moment Steve felt sorry for her. She really didn't know how any of this worked, did she? Eva Natter probably did her spying because she thought it was a little adventure, with no idea of the danger she might be in or the harm she could do.

Even if she really were that naive, however, Steve still couldn't afford to associate with her. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Yeah, me too," she said.

Somebody opened the tent flap. "Frauline Natter?" a voice asked. "They're ready for you."

"I'm coming," she said, and put down her cup of water. "I have to go to work," she said, pulling a pair of mittens on.

"So do I," said Steve. "Goodbye, Eva." It wasn't nice, but he wanted her to know it was final.

"Goodbye, Captain," she replied.

Steve held the tent flap open for her, and as she stepped out, he felt an odd little gust of air, as if something had flown past his arm. He looked to see where it had come from, but saw only the sunlight glinting off something on the museum roof.

Eva crumpled.

Steve reacted automatically, putting out his arms to catch her as she fell. She slumped against him, and he rolled her over and lay her down on her back so he could see what had happened. The expression on her face was utterly blank, her green eyes wide and her mouth open – she didn't understand what had just happened, and was unable to react to it. He saw her look down at herself, and followed her eyes.

There was a hole in her coat, just above where her belly button would be. Blood was seeping into the cloth. She'd been shot.

"Eva," said Steve, "look at me. Look at _me_."

Her eyes flicked up to his face.

"Stay calm," he ordered. He'd done this before. He knew how to handle a gunshot wound. "We're gonna get you help." Around them, people were already making an effort to do so – the security guards were keeping curious onlookers back, while a stylist was hurrying out of the tent with a first aid kit, and Herr Baumhauer was shouting into a walkie-talkie, demanding police and ambulance. That all seemed to be happening very far away, though. Steve began taking his jacket off.

"Here." He handed it to the stylist as she knelt down on Eva's other side. "Use this as a compress – apply pressure to the wound. Don't try to move her or undo her clothing. Let the medics do that."

The woman nodded and did as he said. Steve stood up and grabbed the nearest security man. "Set up a perimeter around her," he ordered. "The shooter's still out there." The man nodded, and turned to pass on the orders to the police and guards from the museum, who were beginning to arrive. Protecting her from another attack would be their first priority.

And yet... who would want to kill Eva Natter?

An ambulance came screaming up East Drive, and Steve backed off to get out of the way. The sirens sounded like they were coming from underwater, muffled by Steve's heartbeat in his ears. Who would want to kill Eva Natter? Her sort of spying hadn't been particularly dangerous – as she'd pointed out, she just listened, and the men she listened to were probably using her to feed information to the East Germans, just as the Germans themselves were using her to obtain it. The likelihood that she knew any actual secrets was very low. Nobody would want to kill Eva Natter.

But there were almost certainly people who wanted to kill Captain America.

Steve left the crime scene behind and crossed East Drive towards the museum, squinting up at the roof. There were metal fittings up there, and glass windows at an angle, and plenty of other things that might reflect the sun. But when he looked now, he was sure he saw something shiny that _moved_.

That was all he needed. He took off for the building at a run.

There were two guards sharing a cigarette outside the fire exit at the back of the museum. They protested that Steve couldn't come in that way, but he pushed past them and kicked the door open. An alarm went off as he burst into a big, sunlit gallery of American sculpture, and museum patrons cried out in surprise. Steve ignored them, too, and looked for stairs – there were a set of art deco ones leading up to the mezzanine. He took them three at a time, then found another staircase to the second floor proper. These continued up. There was a rope across them with a sign that said _authorized personnel only_ , but Steve climbed over it and went all the way up to the roof, ramming a maintenance door with his shoulder until it opened.

Footsteps were chasing him now. He didn't care.

The roof of the museum was a surprisingly complicated place, studded with elevator boxes, giant fans for ventilation, and skylights to let the sunshine into the galleries below. Steve's eyes flew across this strange landscape and then quickly settled on what he was looking for – a human figure crouched at the roof edge, watching what was happening in the park below.

"You there!" Steve shouted, and ran towards the figure. His sneakers crunched on the snowy gravel of the roof.

The man stood up. He was almost as tall as Steve himself, though not as broad in the shoulders. He was dressed in a black coat with a fur hood and black leather gloves, holding a rifle with a telescopic sight. His face was covered by a set of goggles and a mask, so that all Steve could see of his actual appearance was a few wisps of dark brown hair. That was all he _needed_ to see. He knew exactly who this was.

"So you're the Winter Soldier," said Steve.

The man raised his rifle, ready to finish the job he'd started. Steve's automatic reaction was to raise his shield, but he didn't have it – it was at home in his apartment. He hadn't thought he'd need it on a trip to Central Park to break up with his not-girlfriend. Instead, at the last possible moment, Steve dropped to his knees, letting the shot go over his head and smash through the peaked skylight behind him. Then he bounced back up and charged the man.

The Winter Soldier threw his rifle aside and pulled out a big military knife. Howard's words echoed in his head for a moment – _HYDRA's not going to attack you with a pocket knife_. But this man wasn't HYDRA, and Howard wasn't here. Howard was dead, because the Winter Soldier had shot him. Steve put up his arm to block the man's thrust and tried to grab his wrist and take the weapon from him, but the Soldier ducked under his hand and tried to stab him in the leg instead. Steve spun out of the way and seized the other man by the coat.

The two of them grappled for a few seconds, Steve grabbing to try to remove the mask while the Winter Soldier stabbed at whatever body part made a convenient target: arms, legs, even face. He was strong and quick, and it reminded Steve of fighting Fyodorova. Like her, this man must've been trained for years. Again and again, Steve had to block, until he finally got the knife away from his opponent and threw it over the edge of the roof. In doing so, however, he momentarily took his eyes off the Soldier. The man grabbed Steve's other arm and swung him against the skylight. If the pane had been whole, Steve would probably have bounced off, but it was already weakened by the bullet, and he went smashing through.

Beneath the skylight was a gallery with hardwood floors and white walls, exhibiting abstract and modern art. The room was empty of people, having been evacuated when the bullet broke the window, but Steve had the misfortune to land in the middle of a large sculpture made of twisting, partially gilded glass. His weight alone wouldn't have broken it, but the impact tipped it over and it shattered on the floor into big, irregular chunks with sharp edges and corners. Steve was left bruised, bloodied, and winded in the middle of the mess, while two museum guards and half a dozen police officers came charging into the room to grab him.

"The shooter," he panted as they dragged him to his feet. "He's on the roof. He killed Howard Stark, too."

The men turned him around and clapped handcuffs on him. Steve didn't have time for that – he forced his wrists apart to break the chain. "Listen to me!" he rounded on the nearest one. "The Winter Soldier! He's still up there! You can..."

Then he realized there were several firearms pointed at him, and his brain caught up with the situation. From the point of view of the rest of the world, he'd just fled the scene of an attempted murder, broken into the museum, assaulted several security guards, destroyed public property, and was now resisting arrest. It was a wonder they hadn't already opened fire. He slowly raised his hands.

"Um. Sorry," he offered.

The cops did not attempt to cuff him again, but they kept him surrounded as they dragged him down the stairs and out the front door, to one of a dozen waiting police cars. Traffic was at a standstill all up and down Fifth Avenue, and more police had to keep the crowds back as Steve got into one of the vehicles. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a young man take his picture, and frowned. Was that the Jameson kid he'd shouted at the night Howard died?

The young man lowered his camera and made sure Steve had seen him, then smiled viciously and took several more pictures. Yeah, that was him.

More cops had to get people and vehicles out of the way so they could drive Steve to the station on the 85th Avenue Transverse. There were people staring at them from the sidewalks the whole way, and it made Steve wonder how the Winter Soldier was planning on getting away. He couldn't go down through the museum, which was already in an uproar, but he could hardly jump off the roof and fall three storeys into the park, could he? Come to think of it, how had he gotten _up_ there to begin with?

Fyodorova would have known, but she wasn't here to tell.

The policemen had their heads high as they brought Steve into the station and booked him for a short but impressive list of offenses: leaving a crime scene, resisting arrest, assault, battery, breaking and entering, and vandalism. They photographed him, and were taking his fingerprints when a door opened and six SHIELD agents walked in. All of them were tall men, and together they just about filled the room. In the lead was Nick Fury.

"Party's over, boys," Fury said, showing his badge. "We're here for Captain America."

"We're not done," the man in charge snarled.

"Take it up with Madame Director," said Fury.

The agents surrounded Steve and escorted him back out to a waiting black van with the eagle logo on the sides. Steve said nothing the whole way, and none of the men asked him any questions. It wasn't until they were buckled in and on their way to SHIELD headquarters that Fury finally spoke up.

"I'm sorry about Eva, man," he said.

Steve hung his head. "Not as sorry as I am."

"Did you see the shooter?" asked Fury.

"Yes, I did," said Steve. He was betting Fury had already guessed what had happened. Peggy definitely had. Nobody would want to kill Eva Natter, and anybody who didn't wouldn't think it was worth sending a high-level secret weapon to do so – but in the nine months he'd been awake Steve had surely made plenty of enemies in the Soviet Union. They'd decided to do something about it, and they'd sent the same man they'd used to kill Howard Stark. Eva had just stepped outside at exactly the wrong moment. "I'd gone to tell her I couldn't see her again," he sighed.

"It wasn't your fault," said Fury.

"If I hadn't been there..." Steve began.

" _Not_ your fault," Fury repeated. "It was the guy who pulled the trigger, nobody else. _He_ made that decision to kill somebody."

"He was aiming for _me_!" Steve insisted. "If I hadn't gone today, it would never have happened!"

There was a long silence.

"She's not dead," Fury said.

"She's not?" Steve looked up, but the moment of optimism didn't last long. He'd seen gut shots during the war. They caused massive internal bleeding, and if the intestines were torn infection was nearly inevitable – victims lingered for hours in terrible pain while their strength ebbed, until death was a mercy. Medicine had improved a lot in the past forty years, but even so, how much could they really do for Eva's injury?

"She's in the hospital," said Fury. "They'll look after her."

Steve dropped his gaze again. "Yeah."

Peggy was waiting on the steps of SHIELD. When Steve got out of the van, she came up with her arms out to give him a comforting hug, but he held up his hands to stop her.

"Inside," he said. "We're exposed out here."

"Of course," she nodded.

In her office, she gave Steve a cup of hot chocolate and sat him down in one of the big chairs. He wished they could do this anywhere else. This room was too deeply associated with bad news by now, especially with all these other people, including Fury and Pearce, standing around watching him.

"I've had a word with the chief of police," said Peggy. "We _are_ considering this an assassination attempt, and we're taking it very seriously. I won't force you, but... I would feel much better if you would stay here at SHIELD until we've got it sorted."

Steve nodded dully, but he hated the idea. She'd offered him a room at SHIELD the day he'd woken up, and he'd said no, because he didn't want to feel like a prisoner. Now... well, nothing had changed. Being locked up for his own protection was still being locked up.

"I know how you feel about it, Steve," she added. "But if you won't do it for yourself, can you do it for me?" she gave him a pleading look. "I'm leaving this afternoon to go check on the tesseract, and I want to know you're safe. "Please?"

"I'll think about it," said Steve. That was as much as he was willing to give her.

She sat down across from him. "Steve, look at me," said Peggy.

He raised his eyes and found her watching him earnestly. Her hands were shaking slightly as she put them over his, wrapped around his cocoa cup. She was terrified.

"Steve, please don't go after the shooter," she said. "I really mean it. If it's who we think it is, it won't end well. I don't want to lose you a second time. Besides," she added, sitting up a bit. "We need to figure out what's going on with the tesseract. If anything, this may be a sign that we're on the right track. I need you focused. I don't know what we might have to do next, but I do know that if we end up having to move it, I'll want you to take charge of that, and you can't be distracted. I know that when somebody tells you not to do something you generally take that as permission to do it anyway, but I mean it this time, Steve. Please. Don't go looking for the Winter Soldier."

He knew he couldn't give her a noncommittal answer on _that_ , so he nodded. "I won't."

"Thank you." Peggy smiled gently and stood again. "Stay safe, Steve. I'll see you in a couple of days. Diane, did you get my flight changed?"

"Yes, Ma'am," said Peggy's secretary. "You'll be landing in Dulles at two-thirty."

"Thank you," Peggy replied, and then she was gone.


	8. Chapter 8: Vanishing Acts

Fury put a comforting hand on Steve's shoulder as they left Peggy's office. "I'll go upstairs with you," he suggested. "We'll find a couple of beers and watch whatever's on. It'll distract you."

A distraction sounded nice, but Steve shook his head. "I gotta go home," he said.

"Madame Director didn't want you going home," Fury said. "It's not safe."

"Well, if it's not safe for _me_ , it's sure as hell not safe for anybody else who's in my apartment, is it?" asked Steve.

Fury hadn't thought of that. "I see," he said.

"I'll be fast," Steve promised.

* * *

Steve didn't know where Tony might have gone after his argument with his mother that morning, but he was quite sure he would be coming _back_. He wouldn't be willing to go home when Obadiah Stane was still there, and if he went to stay with the Jarvises, they would probably call Maria. That meant he would have to come back to Steve's place eventually, whenever 'eventually' might be.

It turned out to be nearly midnight. Tony came in the door and kicked his boots off, waking Steve, who'd been dozing on the sofa.

"Where were you?" Steve asked, sitting up.

"Out," grumbled Tony, tossing his jacket over the back of a chair.

"Did you hear about Eva?" Steve wanted to know.

"No." Tony went to the kitchen. "What about her?"

Steve grabbed the jacket and followed him. "She's in the hospital. She was shot."

Tony had been reaching for the refrigerator, but stopped halfway there and turned around, his brown eyes huge. "Is she dead?" he asked.

"Not yet," said Steve bitterly, "but you have to go home." He held out Tony's jacket. "Pack up your stuff."

"Why?" asked Tony.

"Because the shooter was aiming for _me_ ," Steve told him. "It's the guy who killed your father. I'm not letting you be next. I promised your mother I wouldn't put you in harm's way again." He shook the jacket once, urging Tony to take it. "Pack."

"Obi's still there!" Tony protested. "He wouldn't even let me _talk_ to Mom!"

In any other situation, that probably would have made Steve think again. What kind of person refused to let a son talk to the mother who'd _said_ she was worried about him? In that moment, however, it was still less important than Tony's _life_. "I don't care. You're safer with him than you are with me," Steve said. "Pack up and let's go, or I'll carry you."

"What if they need me at SHIELD again?" Tony asked. He was terrified, but still seeking reasons to stay.

"Then they'll _call_ you," said Steve. "Peggy doesn't think _I'm_ safe here. If I let _you_ stay she might shoot me herself. We're going."

This was exactly the kind of order that might make Tony refuse out of spite, but to Steve's relief, he appeared to understand the gravity of things. He wasn't happy about it, but he stuffed his things in his duffel bag and gathered up the notebooks he'd brought from SHIELD, and let Steve drive him home. In the lobby of the Park Avenue apartment complex where the Starks lived, he stopped and wrote a phone number on a sheet of notebook paper.

"This is the extra line in my room," Tony explained, folding the page in half and handing it to Steve. "We got it so Dad could still get calls while I was talking to Rhodey long-distance in the summer. Tell Madame Director to call me there, so Obi won't pick it up."

"Got it," Steve nodded. "If we need you again, we'll let you know." He tucked the page into his jeans pocket. "I won't be at my usual number, either – Peggy wants me to stay at SHIELD until we catch this guy. I'll give you a call and let you know where I'll be."

"Thanks," said Tony. He looked at his feet. "Well... good luck catching this guy," he said.

"I'll need it," Steve replied grimly. He did not tell Tony that Peggy had forbidden him to do so. Some things needed to be secrets, at least for a while.

* * *

Howard Stark had once told Steve that a hangover was caused by dehydration of the brain as alcohol left a person's system. Steve didn't doubt that Howard knew what he was talking about, and had observed at the time that since Steve himself could never get drunk, he couldn't be hung over, either. At the time it had seemed like a blessing.

But as he woke up in a strange bed and remembered that he'd nearly been assassinated, that a woman who had honestly only _mildly_ betrayed him had been shot in his stead, and that he'd had to send Tony home to the people the kid most wanted to avoid in the world... by all rights, Steve _ought_ to feel like shit after a day like that. He hadn't invited Fury up for beers, but he _had_ opened the bottle of 1947-vintage Bourbon Dum-Dum had given him on Thanksgiving, and he'd made significant inroads on it. He _should_ have had a screaming headache and itchy eyes, and the first thing he should have wanted to do was stagger into the bathroom and try to throw up, only to find there was nothing in his stomach. That was what any _human being_ would do.

Instead, while Steve didn't exactly feel _rested_ , he felt... all right. He felt like he could get up and go about his day if he chose to. He probably would have been _wishing_ he felt like that if he had indeed been suffering from a hangover, but at the moment it seemed all wrong. As Steve sat up and ran a hand through his hair he wondered, not for the first time and surely not for the last, if a person whose body responded like his even really counted as _human_ anymore. And if he wasn't human, then what was he?

The other problem was that feeling _capable_ of getting up meant Steve felt like he _had_ to. Before the serum, any day when he didn't feel terrible was a day on which he had a responsibility to try to get stuff _done_. It was a habit he could not quite break, so he stood up and stretched, and stumbled into the bathroom.

It had occurred to Steve to wonder whether the quarters Peggy had assigned him were the same ones she'd offered him the day he woke up back in April. Even if it wasn't, it was probably a very similar one: the main room was a combination bedroom and sitting room, with a bathroom and closet on one side of the twin beds, and a kitchenette on the other. It looked like a nice but bland hotel, and it was impossible to feel at home there. The only thing in the room that was _his_ was the suitcase, which he'd dumped on the other bed without bothering to open.

Now he unzipped it to get clean clothes, toothbrush, and razor, and wondered what he ought to do that day. Steve hated hiding, but Peggy had been very specific that he was to do exactly that. Anywhere he went, innocent people around him would be in danger from the Winter Soldier, but his mind recoiled from the idea of hanging around at SHIELD all day. Where did that leave him?

It left him with one thing he did definitely want to do... or no, he didn't _want_ to do it, but he felt like he _had_ to. He owed it to her.

He picked up the phone and called Nick.

"Fury," said the voice on the other end, around what sounded like a mouthful of cereal.

"It's me," said Steve. "Is Peggy still in Washington?"

"I think so," Nick said. "She's got a meeting with some kind of zoning board about the new HQ they're building. Why?"

Steve had assumed that if Peggy were going to Washington it must be because the tesseract was being kept there somewhere, but now he realized thatwas probably not the case. If the tesseract were in Washington, she never would have let anybody know that was where she was going. "You told me yesterday that Eva's in the hospital," he said. "Which hospital?"

* * *

Steve still had to call Tony with the number of his room at SHIELD, but he didn't want to give himself any reason to put off this apology. He stopped a florist's for some carnations, but other than that he didn't even let himself get a cup of coffee before heading to New York Presbyterian to knock on the door of Eva's suite.

The man who opened it was tall and thin, with a gaunt face, heavy dark circles under his eyes, and one of the most horribly obvious toupees Steve had ever seen. He didn't look welcoming, but Steve had expected that. Eva's staff must have been able to guess who shooter's real target had been. Steve was prepared to leave his flowers and his apology and be ordered out, but instead, the man in the door gave him a half-hearted smile.

"Captain Rogers," he said, and Steve recognized the voice. This must be Herr Baumhauer. "Won't you come in?" He stepped aside for Steve to enter.

"Sure. Thanks," said Steve. He held up the bouquet. "I, uh, brought her some flowers."

Baumhauer motioned to a staff member, one of several in the room, who came to take the flowers from him. "I'll get some water," the woman said softly, and once again it was a familiar voice: Belinda. She did not not look like she was going to ask for Steve's autograph today.

"Thanks," Steve said again, and stepped into the room. The first thing he noticed, even before the nasty sterile hospital smell that didn't seem to have changed a bit in the forty-five years since he'd used to visit his mother in the TB ward, was that his own bouquet was neither the first nor the most extravagant. Eva must have millions of fans in Europe and North America, and the room was full of cards and gifts. The biggest offering was an immense vase of white roses and multicoloured gerbera daisies, with a tag that said _I'm sorry, baby – BB_. Steve almost wanted to laugh at that. Did Bob Barnum think really Eva had been shot because of her association with _him_?

In the middle of the jungle of bouquets, wreaths, and potted plants, Eva herself was lying in bed with an oxygen mask covering almost all of her face. She was unconscious. Yesterday morning she'd been vibrant and smiling, but now she looked pale and ill, and without makeup it was painfully obvious that she was ten years older than Steve. If he hadn't known it was Eva Natter lying in that bed, Steve might not even have recognized her.

Her bullet wound had been operated on, sewn up, and bandaged. It was invisible. The only sign of injury that Steve could see was a scrape by her right eye, which must have happened as the EMT's put her in the ambulance.

Steve hung his head for a moment. "I'm sorry," he said softly to her, reaching for her hand. It was limp and clammy, and reminded him too much of the dead man's hand on the _Achilles_ – he'd meant to hold it, but after a moment he withdrew his own fingers. "This was... if I hadn't been there, this wouldn't have happened. I didn't know I was putting you in danger, and I'm sorry."

There was no response at all. Eva, in a fog of pain and drugs, had not even heard him.

"It was not your fault, Captain Rogers," said Baumhauer. "Nobody blames you."

"Thanks," said Steve dully. It wasn't true though. _He_ blamed himself.

With the flowers delivered and the apology made, there didn't seem to be any reason for Steve to stay. The longer he was in this room, the more likely she would only be hurt worse by another stray bullet. Steve stood there a few moments longer, then turned away. "Well... I'm sure she's being taken care of," he said.

"The doctors say she is 'stable'," Baumhauer said, clearly a little unsure what that meant. "We'll keep you informed, if you like."

"Miss Wolski said you left this," Belinda added, holding out a large shopping bag. "We did have it dry-cleaned for you."

Steve looked inside – there was the blue nylon jacket he'd been wearing yesterday. She'd mentioned cleaning it so he'd know it was not stained with Eva's blood. "Thanks," he repeated, taking it. The word didn't mean a damned thing anymore. "I've got one of those answering machines. If there's news, you can leave me a message."

He made his way around the end of the bed to leave, but then he paused. Eva really did look different... maybe it was just that she was so sick, or maybe it was that this was the first time he'd seen her when she hadn't been wearing heavy makeup, but something was just _wrong_. Steve looked closer at her face. The oxygen mask made her features hard to define, but there were the full lips, the high cheekbones, the arched eyebrows...

The mole. Eva had a small mole above her right eyebrow. He'd noticed it the night he'd danced with her in Oslo. It was not there now.

He looked up at Baumhauer. "Who... this isn't Eva," he said. "Is it?" What was going on? Was there more than one Eva Natter? Did she have a stunt double or something?

"You're very observant, Captain," said Baumhauer with a nod. He didn't sound angry – in fact, to Steve's surprise he sounded _amused_. "Yes, with Frauline Natter injured, we thought it was a good idea to introduce a body double, in case the shooter came looking for her again. We'd appreciate if you kept it a secret."

They were worried about the shooter returning? Was it possible they really _didn't_ know the assassin had been aiming for Steve? How could they not? "Where is she?" Steve asked.

"I'd rather not say," Baumhauer told him apologetically. "You understand. Rest assured, she is being cared for, and she will be on her way home as soon as she is able to travel."

"Who do you think tried to kill her?" asked Steve. What _did_ her staff believe was going on?

Baumhauer's lips thinned. "Some of Frauline Natter's fans are rather... obsessive."

"There was that guy in Switzerland who thought she was in love with him, and Mr. Baumhaer was keeping her locked up," Belinda put in. "He went to jail, but we don't want that happening again."

"I see," said Steve, and did not tell the two what had really happened. Like not telling Tony he'd been forbidden to go after the Winter Soldier, there were some things that were secrets for a reason. Peggy kept secrets because she wanted people to be safe. Steve was keeping them because he didn't want to hurt anybody... or maybe because he didn't want anybody to be angry or disappointed with him.

In the elevator on his way back down to the ground floor, Steve found himself standing there staring at the metal doors while a pair of nurses whispered to each other behind him. Finally one of them – the blonde one – cleared her throat and asked, "are you Captain America."

"Yeah, that's me," said Steve. He couldn't even bring himself to make the usual joke about how he used to be.

"I _told_ you," the Latina one said, giving her friend a gentle shove. "What are you doing here, Captain?"

"I came to see Eva Natter," said Steve.

"Is it true you two are dating?" the blonde asked, eyes wide.

"No, it's not." Steve shook his head. He and Eva had never gotten the _chance_.

* * *

After leaving the hospital, Steve took a taxi back to SHIELD. Tony's workroom there seemed like a good place to have a conversation he didn't want anybody else overhearing. He picked up the phone, and called Peggy's office. Diane picked it up.

"It's Captain Rogers," Steve said. "I need a number for Peggy in Washington."

"She's in meetings all day," said Diane.

"She can call me when she has a moment. It's not really urgent," said Steve. There didn't seem to be anything he could do about any of this right now, whether Peggy called him back or not.

"Will it be at this number?" Diane asked.

"Yeah," said Steve. "I'm not going anywhere." He didn't even bother with _thanks_ this time as he put the receiver back on the hook.

While he waited for the return call, Steve looked at the things Tony had left in the room and began to tidy them up a little. He wound the spilled film back onto its reels and put it in the canister, although it had gotten a bit bent and it was hard to say whether it would play again. Tony had taken his own notebooks with him when he'd left, but most of his father's were still here. Steve put those back in the trunk, along with the jacket and the ridiculous comic books. This stuff was Tony's. Steve ought to take it back to him.

The phone rang, and Steve jumped on it. "Rogers!" he said.

"Steve?" asked Peggy. "Diane said you wanted to talk to me?" She sounded worried. Steve suspected he knew why, and sure enough, the next words out of her mouth were, "did you find the Winter Soldier?"

"No," said Steve. "I just wanted some clarification on something. You said Eva's job is basically hanging around with American politicians in Europe and listening to them gossip. Is that _all_ she does?" He felt like an idiot for asking, but he needed to know.

"That and looking pretty in photographs," said Peggy. "Why? What did you learn?"

There was anxiety in her voice – she was worried she'd missed something. Steve probably should have found that reassuring. It meant she wasn't hiding anything from him. "Nothing important," he said. All it meant was that as he'd already suspected, the Winter Soldier could have no interest in this woman for her own sake. "Did you know she's got a body double? They've put somebody else in her hospital bed while she's being treated elsewhere."

"It doesn't surprise me," said Peggy. "Listen, Steve," she added, "I owe you an apology. There's been a Soviet smuggling operation bringing weapons into the city. It started just before Thanksgiving. We thought we'd shut them down, but now that the Winter Soldier's here, we think the weapons were _intended_ to be noticed, so we wouldn't realize they were also bringing in agents. I should have told you," she admitted, "but we just didn't think it was important. I'm sorry. We're trying to mop them up, and we _will_ capture the Winter Soldier. Until we're done, though, I really do need you to stay at SHIELD."

Steve had several reactions to that. The first was that he didn't want the Winter Soldier _captured_. He'd never wanted the son of a bitch who'd killed Howard Stark _captured_ , he wanted him _dead_. That was quickly superseded, however, by wave of fast-bubbling _anger_. Just as he'd reassured himself that Peggy wasn't keeping secrets, she'd come out and told him she'd known about a Soviet presence in the city all along!

"How could you not think _that_ was important?" he demanded.

"Because we didn't think it was related," she said. "Hindsight is twenty-twenty, Steve, these things are only obvious in retrospect! I can't do it over the phone, but someday I'll have to tell you how very wrong we were about Roswell..."

"I don't care how wrong you were about Roswell!" said Steve. He didn't want to hear a story right now, or any more excuses. "Why didn't you tell me this?" She'd _known_ the Russians were involved in this, because _he'd_ told her Fyodorova was in town... yet she hadn't bothered to warn him?

"A lot of it I _can't_ tell you! You're a public figure and that means we can't offer you that kind of security clearance," Peggy said. "Believe me, Steve, I'm telling you everything I _think_ you need to know but it's getting harder and harder to tell the difference. Since the incident at Dvenadstat the Soviets have been improving their security on all fronts and we're being shut out of channels we used to take for granted! Just... stay where you are, _please_ ," she begged. "I've got my best people on it."

Steve thought about telling her he'd already been out to see Eva, but he didn't. She'd probably already guessed it when he'd told her about the body double, and if she hadn't, he wouldn't say anything for the entirely petty reason that he wanted a secret of his own. "I'll talk to you when you get back," he said, and then repeated, "I'm not going to look for the Winter Soldier."

"That's good to hear," said Peggy.

Steve hung up the phone, and went to finish packing up Howard's things. Howard had wanted his son to have this trunk. Steve would drop it off at the Starks', and then he'd go out and wander around the city. That wouldn't count as _looking_ for the Winter Soldier, but it might still draw him out. If he made another move, Steve might be able to catch him, and _this_ time he wasn't going to let him get away. The Soldier's head on a platter would be a goddamn Christmas present for Tony and Eva both.

* * *

A family happened to be on their way out the front door when Steve arrived at the Starks' building, so he didn't bother pressing the buzzer. He just held the door for the group, smiling at them as they passed, then slipped inside and caught the elevator.

When he knocked on the door of the penthouse, it was Stane who answered. He was wearing striped pajamas, under a brown and gold patterned bathrobe that Steve was pretty sure had belonged to Howard. "Can I help you, Captain Rogers?" he asked. Herr Baumhauer had moved aside to let Steve into Eva's hospital room. Obadiah Stane was standing so as to fill the doorway to the Stark home as much as possible.

"Yeah," said Steve, and lifted the trunk, which he'd set down on the floor at his feet. "I've brought some stuff for Tony. Howard wanted him to have it."

"I'll take it," Stane said, reaching out.

Steve hesitated. This entire day had been weird and troubling, but unlike Eva's double and Peggy's secrets, Steve could _argue_ with Stane. "I'd like to give it to Tony myself," he said, a little more stiffly than he'd meant to. Then he looked over Stane's clothing and asked, "weren't you supposed to move in _after_ Christmas?"

"I'm a guest here," said Stane. His tone of voice managed to make a point of the fact that _he_ was welcome, while _Steve_ was not. "Tony is grounded. He's not allowed to have visitors. I'll give him his things."

"Why is he grounded?" asked Steve, but a moment later he realized this was a foolish question. Tony Stark was only sixteen, and he'd embarrassed his family at thanksgiving dinner, run away from home, and scared his mother half to death. Of _course_ he was grounded, and Stane was trying to enforce his authority as the new head of the household. Tony resented that, which had probably led to another fight, thus providing Stane with yet another reason to punish him.

"For a lot of reasons," said Stane. He reached for the trunk. Steve, still feeling petty, dropped it in Stane's hands as if it weighed nothing, and took nasty satisfaction in the w _hoof!_ noise the man made as he realized how heavy it was. Stane also recognized an act of aggression when he saw one, though, and his steel blue eyes narrowed as they met Steve's. "I think you'd better go, Captain."

"Is that Captain America?" asked a small voice.

Zeke had come to see what was going on. He was trotting up the hall towards the door where the two men stood, clutching a piece of cardboard with holes down one side. Steve recognized it as the torn-off back cover of a notebook.

"Yes," said Stane, "but he was just leaving."

Zeke didn't seem to take the hint. Instead, he wiggled past his father in the doorway and held out the piece of cardboard. "Will you sign your dinosaur?" he asked.

"My what?" Steve looked down at the sheet the boy was offering him. It was the one he'd been drawing on while waiting for Peggy the other day. There weren't any dinosaurs on it, though – the only living thing in any of the doodles was the black bird Steve had rescued from the _Achilles_. "That's not a dinosaur," he said. "It's just a bird."

"It's a _dinosaur_ bird," Zeke said firmly. "It's an _arr-key-opp-tricks_. It lived a hundred and fifty million years ago, in the Jurassic period." His voice was as authoritative as only a five-year-old talking about dinosaurs could possibly be.

The name of the animal was vaguely familiar to Steve in a way that suggested he'd heard it once or twice, but never in a context where he'd taken particular interest in it. He certainly wouldn't have been able to identify it with an animal on his own. "Who told you that?" he asked, as he took the cardboard from Zeke to sign his name to it. As much as Steve was still annoyed with Stane and a number of other people, he couldn't help a small smile. This was the first time in years somebody had asked him to sign something as an _artist_ , rather than as Captain America.

"I read it in a book," said Zeke. "I asked Tony who drew it, and he said you did, and he said I could have it. I didn't know you drew dinosaurs."

"Neither did I." Steve handed it back. "Um... tell me, how did you recognize it as an, uh..."

" _Arr-key-OPP-tricks_ ," said Zeke, enunciating carefully.

"As that?" Steve asked.

"By the tail." Zeke pointed. "It's got a long tail, with feathers on the sides."

Janet Pym had said the animal couldn't be a crow because the tail was too long. It couldn't be a dinosaur either, though, because dinosaurs were extinct – never mind the fact that they were lizards and those was a bird. What did _Tony_ think the image represented? Steve stood up. "Are you sure I can't talk to Tony?" he asked Stane.

"Quite sure," said Stane. "Have a very good day, Captain Rogers." He herded Zeke back inside, and shut the door with a click.

"Who was that, Obadiah?" Steve heard Maria's voice call.

"Nobody important," Stane replied.

"It's Captain America!" Zeke said. "He signed my dinosaur!"

Steve waited a moment, wondering if _Maria_ would let him in, but all he heard was the voices moving away from the door, the words muffled even as the pitches rose in an argument. Very well then, he decided, he had another way to get in touch with Tony. He'd promised the kid a phone call anyway.

He went back down to ground level and walked to the bank of pay telephones on the corner by the bus stop, where he put a quarter in the slot and called the number for Tony's private line.

The phone rang four times, and then a gruff voice said, "hello?"

That wasn't Tony. "Stane?" asked Steve.

"I _told_ you, Captain," said Stane. "Tony is grounded. He has lost his telephone privileges. Whatever you want to tell him, you can tell me, and I will pass it on."

Steve gritted his teeth – no wonder Tony hated this man! He spent a moment thinking, trying to figure out what he could say that would _force_ Stane to let him talk to Tony, but then he decided it was pointless. "That won't be necessary," he said, and hung up.

He stood there for a moment, stewing, then turned around and headed back to the building. Maybe it was just because he was frustrated, but Steve's gut was telling him he'd stumbled across something important. Could the bird be more significant than he'd thought? It must have come from _somewhere_ , and wherever that was, the other stuff merged with the _Achilles_ must have started off in the same place. If they could figure out where that was, maybe that would be a clue to who was messing with the tesseract.

Maybe it hadn't even come from a _where_. If Zeke thought it was something prehistoric, it could just as well have come from a _when_. Maybe it wasn't _space_ they were dealing with here, after all.

Steve observed that holes in space _would_ have explained how Fyodorova had gotten out of Tony's room in time to avoid being discovered by Maria. He remembered considering the idea that she'd climbed down the outside of the building, but that wasn't practical, not for the whole distance and not with a child in tow. What Steve had in mind now wasn't entirely dissimilar, though – the building had thousands of windows, which would all need to be washed periodically, even in the winter. The men who washed them would have to go up and down somehow.

Sure enough, when Steve rounded the block and went into the alley between the towers, he found the wooden platforms the window-washers used to get to the top. There was nobody using it today – the weather was too windy. Good. Steve climbed on, and starting hauling himself up the side of the building.

The Starks' penthouse had a patio terrace around it, which mean the platform couldn't go up all the way to Tony's own windows. That was fine. Steve pulled it up as high as it would go, the cold wind turning his ears numb and stinging his eyes as he ascended, and then squirmed over the edge of the low concrete wall that was _supposed_ to keep the occupants from falling but which had failed drastically on at least one occasion. He landed in a crouch and looked around, trying to figure out which side of the apartment he'd come up on.

Right in front of him, he realized, was the study. Through the tall glass windows he could see Stane, still dressed in Howard's robe, pouring himself a drink. Steve quickly scurried to the right – Tony's room was at the far right corner. The curtains were drawn across the glass patio doors, but Steve rapped on the glass with his knuckles. He hoped Stane stayed in the study and didn't hear the sound. If he caught Steve, he would probably have him arrested for breaking and entering, and one arrest a week was more than enough.

Fortunately, it was Tony who pulled the curtains back and stared out at his visitor with confusion evident in his face. "Captain Rogers?" he whispered, opening the sliding door a crack. "I thought you said it was too dangerous for you to be around me."

"No, I said it was too dangerous for _you_ to be around _me_ ," said Steve. He looked back towards the study. Stane _probably_ wouldn't come out onto the terrace to _see_ him in the cold weather, but if he came down the hallway he might hear their voices. Besides, if the bird did turn out to be a vital clue, they would need Tony's brain again. "Come with me," Steve said. "Call it a rescue."


	9. Chapter 9: A Bird in the Hand

Tony didn't need to be told twice. He didn't even go back for a jacket – it was in an MIT tracksuit and stocking feet that he followed Steve to the ledge and climbed down after him to the window-washers' platform. Steve unlocked the pulley and started lowering them back to the street.

"Zeke Stane asked me to autograph that bird I drew!" Steve said, shouting to be heard. Even though the snow had stopped, the wind was still loud and bitter. "He said it was a dinosaur!"

"Zeke thinks _anything_ extinct is a dinosaur!" Tony said, rolling his eyes. His teeth were chattering, and he'd folded his arms tightly across his chest to keep his body heat in. "What do you need?"

"Do you know what kind of bird it actually _is_?" asked Steve.

"It's a fossil!" Tony said. "They've got a replica in the Museum of Natural History! Why? What's that got to do with anything?"

"That was the bird I rescued from the _Achilles_!" said Steve.

"Huh?" Tony asked.

They reached the bottom. Steve made sure the platform was back just as he'd found it. The wind would blow snow over his and Tony's footprints, and nobody would ever know they'd borrowed it. He tied off the ropes, and went to hail a cab.

One pulled over, and they climbed in. Tony rubbed his hands together and wiggled his toes, grateful to be out of the cold and wind. "Are we going to SHIELD?" he asked, still shivering.

"Not yet," said Steve, and leaned forward to talk to the driver. "Garden City Bird Sanctuary," he said.

The driver nodded and started the vehicle. The meter began to run.

As they pulled away from the curb, Tony peered at Steve as if trying to figure out what the punch line of this joke was going to be. "You... actually _saw_ that bird?" he asked. "Alive? Did it have teeth? Were there claws on the ends of its wings?"

"I didn't look that close," Steve said. He'd been worried about getting the unfortunate animal out of a dangerous environment, not about the particulars of what it looked like. He would probably have never even paid attention to the tail if Janet Pym hadn't pointed it out. "I've been thinking: we were assuming that the tesseract was putting chunks of different _places_ together. They've got trees like that in California, right? Giant redwoods."

"Right," said Tony, and quickly figured out where Steve was trying to go with this. "But nothing's missing, is it? If a volcano had vanished somewhere when it got moved to Norway, people would have heard about it, because that's weird. Or if a chunk went missing out of a redwood tree. Madame Director's probably had people looking for stuff like that because if course it has to _come_ from somewhere. So if she'd found it, she would have said something."

"Yeah. She would have told me," Steve agreed, although he was no longer sure of that. Peggy kept a lot of secrets. That should have been obvious from the moment she'd told him she was now in charge of SHIELD, but somehow he had never drawn the logical conclusion that she would be keeping secrets from _him_.

"But if it's getting things out of other _times_ , then we _wouldn't_ find anything missing," Tony said.

"Exactly." Steve nodded. "You said the tesseract exists in multiple dimensions, right? Isn't one of those dimensions time?"

"Well, _everything_ exists in time," said Tony. "If it didn't, nothing could ever happen. What's weird about the tesseract is that seems to exist in more _space_ dimensions than the usual three. I guess there's no rule that says it can't also have multiple _time_ dimensions, but I've got no idea what that would look like. I mean, the math would be pretty much the same as for space, but as for what it would _mean_ in the real world, I can't picture it."

"You don't need to picture it as long as you can figure out how it works," said Steve.

"Right," said Tony. "I'll need more paper."

* * *

The Garden City Bird Sanctuary was a little plot of land on Long Island, some of it forested and some open with a pond, which had been set aside as a home for a variety of local species. It had foot and bike paths, an interpretive center, and a small hospital for rescued wildlife. Steve directed the taxi driver to park outside of this building.

Inside the front entrance was a waiting room with bare linoleum floors and uncomfortable-looking metal chairs, where a few people were sitting with animals they'd found. An elderly black woman appeared to be asleep with a racoon curled up in her lap. A few seats further down was a freckled girl of about eleven, accompanied by her grumpy-looking father and a large cardboard box. The contents of the box were moving around and making scratching sounds, clearly displeased with their incarceration. Steve passed them by, and rang the little bell on the counter.

The receptionist, a plump, dark-haired woman with enormous plastic-rimmed glasses, got up from where she'd been hunting for something in a drawer. When she saw Steve she immediately leaned back away from him, intimidated both by his size and by the intensity of his expression.

"Can I help you, uh..." her eyes flicked from Steve to Tony and back again. "Gentlemen?"

"There was a black bird dropped off here about a week ago, with part of a wing missing," said Steve. "It was found on the _Achilles_ oil rig in Canada. Is it still here?" It would be just his luck if they'd sent it somewhere else.

The woman blinked at him a couple of times, then brightened. "Oh! The one with the funny tail!"

"We need to see it," said Steve.

"It's a matter of national security!" said Tony. "We're federal agents."

The woman pulled her glasses down her nose and looked him over, taking in his damp sweatshirt and lack of shoes, and pursed her lips. "Our patients are not pets," she said. "They're wild animals. We can't just let people in to look at them."

"It's not a random request – I'm the one who found the bird at _Achilles_ ," said Steve.

"Cheryl said Captain America had fo..." the woman began, but then her voice trailed off as she gave _Steve_ another look-over and found him decidedly more impressive than Tony.

"And I'm Tony Stark," Tony put in. "America's youngest astronaut!" No less a person than President Reagan had called him that, and apparently he never intended to let anybody forget it.

"Let me call Dr. Alvarez," the woman decided.

Dr. Alvarez turned out to be a rather short man with thinning hair and a bushy mustache, who arrived dressed in a lab coat over a Harley-Davidson t-shirt. He was beaming as he offered Steve and Tony his hand to shake.

"A pleasure to meet you both!" he said cheerfully, in a broad New York accent. "Tommy Alvarez. I'm in charge of the animal hospital here. Captain Rogers, Mr. Stark. Always nice to have visitors. Jessie, if you'd just hold my calls while I give them a tour?" he asked the receptionist.

"Of course, Doctor," she replied, still looking a little unsure about the entire situation.

Alvarez held the door for his visitors, then led them down a hallway with fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling and a mix of things on the wall including wildlife paintings, lost dog posters, and bulletin boards with various bills and announcements pinned to them. "So you're here to see the _Achilles_ creature," he said conversationally. "She's an odd little duck. A _rara avis_ , if you will – ha!" he laughed at his own joke. "You speak any Latin?"

"Nobody speaks Latin," said Tony. "It's a dead language."

"Not true, my friend," Alvarez told him. "The whole former Roman Empire speaks it. Italian, French, Spanish... all just dialects of Latin! But _rara avis_ is an expression that means something singular or unusual..."

"We know what it means," Steve assured him. "Rare bird. Did you figure out what _kind_ of bird it is?"

Alvarez looked disappointed that he didn't have to explain the joke. "No, we didn't. Cheryl thought she might be a throwback of sorts, like those circus performers with the fur. If humans can be born with fur sometimes, then it stands to reason birds could be hatched with teeth..."

"It's got teeth?" Tony, who had fallen behind, lengthened his stride to come up between Steve and Alvarez. His wet socks were making squelching noises on the floor.

"Oh, yes. Sharp little buggers, too." Alvarez held up a bandaged finger. "Our initial feeling was we ought to put her down, since she'll never fly again, but she's so strange we decided to keep her and maybe use her as an educational animal. Now that she knows we have food she's become quite amenable to handling. That's assuming we ever put a name to her, of course. Donny thinks she might be something as yet undiscovered."

After passing a half dozen offices and records rooms, Alvarez unlocked a door at the end of the hall and took them into a room lined with cages. These were full of all sorts of animals, from sparrows to eagles, squirrels to skunks, and even a spiny, spotted snake. In one corner was a large freestanding care, possibly designed for a large parrot – and perched on a bar in the middle of this was the black bird from the _Achilles_. The wingtip Steve had amputated had a few stitches in it, but other than that the bird looked reasonably healthy, with glossy plumage and bright eyes.

Now for the first time, Steve was able to take a proper look at it. Its tail was long with a fan of feathers arranged down either side like the frond of a fern. That was the detail that had led Tony and Zeke to identify it as something prehistoric, but it was certainly not the only strange thing about this animal. The undamaged right wing did indeed have a couple of little dark claws on the leading edge, and it had no beak. Its snout, like its feet, was covered in a coat of short innermost claw on each foot was larger and more hooked than the others, and where a crow's eyes were beady and black, this creature's were greenish-gold, with a round pupil.

"Never seen anything quite like her," said Alvarez, shaking his head.

Steve turned to Tony. "What do you think?"

Tony leaned in close to the bars for a look. "I haven't read anything about these in years," he said, voice carefully neutral. "I wasn't expecting the fuzzy feet, but it could be."

"You think you know what she is?" asked Alvarez.

"Possibly,"said Steve. "There's somebody we'll have to show her to."

"Why do you think it's a she?" Tony wanted to know.

"We gave her a checkup," Alvarez assured him. "Definitely a female, although she's a bit strange internally, too. She's got both ovaries. Birds usually only have one. Except kiwi birds, but she doesn't look anything like a kiwi."

"Do you have an x-ray?" asked Tony eagerly.

"We do," said Alvarez. "I can't release it to you, but we've got a Polaroid here somewhere. We'll get a picture of it. If your expert needs a better look, I'm afraid he'll have to come here."

"We'll manage," said Steve.

Alvarez took a picture of the x-ray and then left it upside-down on a table to develop while one of the volunteers put on large gloves and moved the bird – or whatever it was – into a smaller cage for transport. Steve expected it to struggle and scream like it had on the rig, but instead it went very quietly, and accepted a tidbit of fish as a reward for its good behaviour. The _Achilles_ had been a place of pain and fire and panic, but here must seem quite safe. Tony insisted on being the one to carry the cage out, while Steve followed with some photocopies and the x-ray.

It wasn't until they got outside that Tony finally unleashed his enthusiasm, which he'd been holding in like a boiling pot about to blow its lid. "Holy shit, I thought I was going to _die_ in there!" he said. "I knew if I told what it was that guy would never let us take it!"

"It's definitely something extinct, then?" asked Steve.

"Totally!" Tony agreed. "I mean, I was never all that into dinosaurs because they were all dead and it seemed like why should we bother with all the time and effort for something that's gone forever. If I'd known this was coming I would have paid more attention. But I've seen the reconstruction in the Museum of Natural History and it's more colourful and less feathery but this is _really_ close." He was thrilled. "So that stuff that ended up in the arctic last week... that started off in the Jurassic period?"

"I guess," said Steve. "Can the tesseract _do_ that?" Determining what the tesseract was capable of had always been Howard's area, not Steve's. Whatever it could do, Steve's job had always been to keep anybody from _doing_ it.

"Can we go back to SHIELD and get Dad's stuff?" asked Tony.

"I'm afraid not." Steve shook his head. "I left it with Stane."

"What? _Why_?" asked Tony. "He's too stupid to understand what it's all about!"

"He said he would give it to you," said Steve.

Tony snorted. "Fine, I'll just have to redo the math from memory."

Dr. Alvarez had asked Jessie the receptionist to call another cab for them. It pulled up now, and they climbed in. "Are we going to show it to a paleontologist?" asked Tony.

"No, we're going to show it to Peggy," said Steve.

Their first stop was Steve's apartment. Tony borrowed a pair of his sneakers and a spare jacket, both of which were far too big for him. Then they went to the Duane Reade up the street for dry socks, snacks, and note paper, before piling into Steve's car to head for Washington, where Diane had assured them Peggy was spending the night.

It began to snow again as they paid the toll for the New Jersey turnpike. Steve rolled the window back up and turned on the wipers, and spent a moment being grateful for how much faster, quieter, and generally more comfortable cars were in the 1980s than they'd been in the 1940s. Tony sat in the passenger's seat, leaning forward to support his notebook against the dashboard as he scribbled. The bird was in the back, whistling to itself intermittently as it moved around inside its cage. Steve felt rather sorry for it – he'd thought _he_ was displaced in time, but he had nothing on this poor creature.

"How long was Stane planning on keeping you locked in your room?" he asked Tony.

"He said _until I learned some respect_ ," Tony replied sourly. "I don't care. I was just gonna sit in there and work until Mom convinced him to let me out."

Steve frowned. Stane hadn't set an end date for the grounding? That wasn't right. Even criminals in prison got a time limit on their sentence. "What did your mother say about that?"

"She says I have to be nicer to him," Tony said. "She says he's going to be _the man of the house_ and I need to _respect_ him."

"And you don't feel like he's _earned_ your respect," Steve guessed.

"He doesn't respect _me_ ," said Tony. "Okay? Dad didn't _like_ me but he knew I wasn't a child. Obi treats me like I'm _nine_." He had so far been trying to control his voice, but now he began to get louder, anger creeping in at the edges of his words. "When he talks to Mom it's always, _you don't need to worry about that, let me take care of it for you_. Like she can't do _anything_ herself. And if I try to say anything about it, suddenly _I'm_ the jerk, because he's _just trying to be helpful_. Dad's only been dead since April! He has no _right_!"

Maybe it was just because they'd gone over a bump, but at that moment, the point of Tony's pencil broke. He rammed it into a sharpener and twisted, letting the curls of wood fall onto the floor at his feet.

"Have you talked to your Mom about it?" Steve asked.

"I can't," said Tony. "When I try, he's _always there_. It's like he's following her around or something." He returned to his writing for a moment, then suddenly sat back and stared out the window instead, tapping his pencil against the dashboard in impotent, fidgety frustration. "Or maybe I'm just imagining the whole thing, because I'm an angry teenager and I see the world through a haze of hormones," he said bitterly.

Steve couldn't deny that 'angry teenager' was exactly what Tony was, but none of this sounded like something he was making up. Not when Stane was shutting him up in his room and refusing to allow his _mother_ to talk to him. Tony said Obi treated him like a child, but no decent person treated children that way. That sort of handling was for an _enemy_ somebody wanted to _contain_... for example, because that enemy was the only thing that might come between you and the wealthy widow you hoped to marry.

"I'll have a word with Maria, maybe," Steve suggested. "After we've got this tesseract thing figured out."

Tony's head turned to look at him, eyes big and pleading. "Will you?"

"I don't know how much good it'll do," Steve warned. "But I'll give it a try." Maria was Howard's wife, and Steve had been Howard's friend. He didn't know Maria terribly well, but he felt he owed her some form of friendship. After all, he'd been the one who'd gotten her husband killed.

* * *

They stopped at a McDonald's in Philadelphia for lunch. Tony ate while continuing to work on his tesseract math, on sheets of note paper and napkins spread out over half their table and spilling onto a neighbouring one. He brought the bird in with him, and fed it bits of his hamburger patty while he worked. Steve wondered what the grease content of modern fast food would do to the digestion of a creature millions of years old. If the bird suddenly dropped dead, they would know why.

"Getting anything?" he asked, leaning to see if there were anything recognizable in the math. It had by now left both numbers _and_ letters behind, and featured a great many Greek symbols and squiggly lines.

"I'm still reconstructing Dad's original equations," said Tony, mouth full. "I remember the assumptions he used, but deriving them is a long process. Lots of topology."

"Isn't that the study of landscapes?" Steve asked.

"No. That's _topography_ ," said Tony. " _Topology_ is the study of surfaces in multi-dimensional space-time." He flipped through his pages. "Except that all the equations I'm getting are for multiple dimensions of _space_. The tesseract can do weird things to space, but it doesn't seem to affect _time_ any differently from anything else." With a shrug, he returned to the page he'd been working on. "Have you heard anything from the Russian lady?"

"Not yet," said Steve. Now that he thought about it, that was a bit strange. Fyodorova had sounded like her request for help was rather urgent. If she hadn't come back, something must have been keeping her away... or maybe she'd decided that Steve and Tony weren't going to be any use after all, and had gone to take care of it herself.

In the evening, with snow now falling heavily, they arrived in Washington. The city was preparing for Christmas. Steve had been so busy thinking about other things that he'd forgotten it was holiday season, and was a little surprised to see the colourful lights and the bright displays in the shop windows. 1986 was almost over, he realized. What was _1987_ going to be like?

When Peggy visited the capital she liked to stay at the Jefferson Hotel – Steve remembered her mentioning it a few months earlier. He found a spot in the parking lot behind the elegant gray brick building, and they headed into the black and white tiled lobby. The man working at the front desk obligingly looked Peggy up and placed a call to her room, and a few minutes later she stepped out of the elevator. She was still dressed in her business clothes, a pants suit with the jacket slung over her arm, and a red silk scarf around her neck.

"Steve!" she said. "What are you _doing_ here? Why is Tony with you?" She looked at the bird cage Tony was carrying. "What is _that_?"

"I know I'm supposed to be hiding," said Steve. "But we've got some findings for you."

"And these findings are important enough for you to risk your life _and_ Tony's?" she asked.

Steve scowled – Peggy knew him better than that. "Where can we talk?" he asked.

Peggy took them up to her suite and ordered room service. The men had only just eaten an hour and a half earlier, but Steve had an enhanced metabolism and Tony was a teenage boy, so neither complained when a bellhop arrived with a tray of snacks. Tony had a sandwich in his hand as he spread out his papers on the bed, and Steve was munching carrot sticks as he watched.

"I haven't worked through it as thoroughly as I should," Tony admitted, "and there's a lot of approximations because there's only so much math you can do in a moving car. I need a few more iterations for a proper proof, and there's a spot where I had to _assume_ Fermat's Last Theorem applies even though I'd prefer a known axiom. It looks to me, though, like the tesseract has nothing to do with time."

"No?" asked Peggy.

"The tesseract exists outside of time," said Tony. "Entropy doesn't apply to it. Entropy is the tendency of all matter in the universe to move into a more disorganized state," he added. "It's _probably_ the reason time runs in the direction it does, so if the tesseract doesn't experience entropy, then it doesn't..."

"I know what entropy is," said Peggy. "Why is this important? Why are we asking about the tesseract's relationship with time?"

"Oh." Tony looked at the birdcage – its occupant was sleeping now which it didn't seem to be able to do on a perch. Instead, it was curled up on the cage floor with its head tucked under one wing. "That bird, the one Captain Rogers found on the oil rig. It's either an _Archaeopteryx_ or something very similar. It's over a hundred million years old."

Peggy blinked. She looked at the bird, then at Tony, and then at Steve. Steve nodded.

"I see," said Peggy. She probably didn't _want_ to believe that, Steve realized, but she felt she had no choice. She trusted what he and Tony told her. "And you're saying it _couldn't_ be the tesseract that brought it here?"

"Not on its own," said Tony, and took another bite of sandwich. "Even if the tesseract _did_ affect time, it can't move matter. If you had the tesseract open you could make a wormhole and walk through it from one place to another, or this critter could fly through it, but you shouldn't get parts of volcanoes or trees transposed from one place to another. Unless Dad missed something, it's not the tesseract alone that's doing this. And Dad didn't miss things," he added proudly.

"He missed the point of the message from Schmidt," Peggy noted as she thought about it. "Although I suspect he'd have cracked it if he'd had a little longer. But what about the _places_ where these events have been turning up?" she asked. "Tønsberg and the _Achilles_. These are places where the tesseract is definitely known to have _been_. It can't be a coincidence, so what's the connection?"

"Well, like I said, it's possible to _have_ a tesseract sort of thing that would warp _time_ while remaining unaffected by _space_ , although I don't know what that would look like since apparently it would be everywhere at once." Tony shrugged. "You'd need a way to tap into it, something like the tesseract's containment box. Maybe the two objects are... I dunno, trying to _find_ one another." He gestured vaguely.

"Have you checked on the tesseract?" asked Steve. "Is it here?"

"It's under the Pentagon," Tony said. "Right?"

"What?" asked Peggy, startled. "No, it's not! I wouldn't keep something so dangerous _there_. What gave you that idea?"

"Captain Rogers said you'd mentioned Washington," Tony explained. "And I remember reading this old conspiracy theory that they kept the guy who _really_ killed Kennedy – supposedly he had some kind of superpowers – in a cell under the Pentagon. That's my second-favourite Kennedy theory," he added. "My first is the one about how the phone company killed him."

Peggy shook her head. "I know who killed Kennedy," she said, "but that's neither here nor there. The tesseract is not in Washington. I've checked on it, and it's fine."

Steve was relieved to hear both these statements. Fewer things to worry about. "I guess you still won't tell me where it _is_ ," he observed.

"Not in a place that's probably a lot easier to bug than SHIELD is," said Peggy. "In SHIELD I already know about all the bugs, and in the new building I intend that anyone trying to place one will find the available spots already filled." She stood up from the table and began to pace the room. "So we have a theory, but how do we find this time tesseract and stop it doing whatever it's doing?"

"I don't know yet," said Tony. "I need to finish up these calculations before I can start reformulating them for a time version. Which would be a lot quicker if Captain Rogers hadn't given all Dad's stuff to Obi," he said, shooting Steve a glare.

"We can't do anything about that now," said Steve, and took a deep breath. Here came the part of this conversation he'd been dreading. "Peggy, I have an idea who might know what the connection is. Have you found Konstantina Fyodorova?"

"Not a trace," said Peggy. "I've combed the entire Eastern Seaboard, trying to figure out how she got into the country. It wasn't with the smugglers, they're all accounted for, so somebody else must have helped her but I'll be damned if I know who." She sighed. "Even _she_ would have had to leave _some_ trace, and yet there's _nothing_."

"She didn't get in across the Atlantic," said Steve. "She told me she walked across the Bering Strait once the sea ice froze."

Peggy stopped short. "You didn't tell me that," she said.

"I didn't seem important," said Steve. At the time, it hadn't.

Peggy's forehead furrowed and her lips thinned. "Steve," she said severely, "I've just spent the past week wasting SHIELD's time and resources on the wrong coastline! She could have been on the deportation ship by now!"

Steve bristled – after all the things she'd kept from him, she had the _nerve_ to lecture him about something that had merely _slipped his mind_? "Then it's a good thing I didn't!" he replied. "We can't deport her, Peggy, we need her help."

"We most certainly do not!" said Peggy.

"Yes, we _do_ ," Steve insisted. "She said she saw something in the arctic she didn't like, and she wanted my help dealing with it..."

"And mine," Tony chimed in.

"But she disappeared again before I could ask for more details," Steve added. "I don't know where she is now, but I'm _sure_ she knows something about all this."

"The _Achilles_ is in the arctic," said Tony. "And Norway's pretty close."

"There's gotta be a reason she hasn't contacted me again," Steve went on, and then remembered something else Peggy had said. "These smugglers you mentioned, maybe they were also looking for her..."

Peggy interrupted. "She hasn't contacted you again because she knows you're not an utter chump!" she said. "I can promise both of you, whatever she said about needing your help was only intended to flatter your egos. She intends to _use_ you for something."

"I don't think she does." Steve said. "She told me..."

"I don't _care_ what she told you," Peggy snapped. "I've met half a dozen others like her and they were all the same – they will say and do whatever it takes to get their mission done, and they answer to nobody but their superiors in Moscow, or whoever those superiors have loaned them to."

"She gave us the information we needed to rescue the _Odyssey_ astronauts," Tony pointed out.

"Because that was the job she'd been _told_ to do," said Peggy.

"You said you _expected_ us to get her out of jail and enlist her help," Steve reminded her.

Peggy nodded sharply. "I expected you to do that precisely because it was a bloody stupid thing to do!"

"She said the Russians had been going to execute her," Steve insisted. "She said that now you knew her face she was no more use to them."

"And it gained your sympathy very nicely, didn't it?" Peggy said. "Here you are defending her when you of all people ought to know better."

"Even if she's using me," Steve insisted. "It's just possible she knows something relevant. We have to at least _try_ to question her. Can you please trust my judgment on this one?" She trusted him when he talked about time travel, but not about asking questions of a woman who'd helped them before?

Peggy was not amused. "Trust the judgment of a man who thought it was a good idea to take a 15-year-old into _space_?" she said.

He bristled. "I didn't think that was a good idea! _Tony_ thought that was a good idea!" Steve pointed to the young man.

"Hey, leave _me_ out of this!" Tony protested.

"You didn't stop him!" said Peggy.

"There wasn't _time_ ," said Steve. "There were lives on the line! There may be lives on the line now!" He realized he was shouting, and made an effort to calm down. Yelling couldn't help. Peggy had always been at _least_ as contrary as Steve himself. "We _need_ to talk to her," he said. "You can question her yourself if you want but I'm convinced she knows something we need to know."

Peggy rubbed her forehead. "We'll talk to her, all right," she said. "But _I_ decide what we do with her after that. We have to catch her first, though, so if you'll excuse me, I have to make a couple of phone calls and re-direct the efforts of at least fifty SHIELD agents and half the NYPD." She snatched up the hotel room's phone, and dialed with a certain amount of violence. "Hello? I need to speak to Commissioner Ward. Yes, I'll hold." She pursed her lips and tapped her foot impatiently.

Steve rather doubted the NYPD could do anything. This was a woman who'd been able to vanish from Tony's bedroom with only a few seconds' warning. He finished his sandwich and got up. "Do you have a picture of her?" he asked. "She must have had an employee file when she worked at SHIELD or something."

"I do," said Peggy, "although it probably doesn't look a thing like her anymore."

"I'd like a copy," Steve said. "I've got some ideas of my own where to look."


	10. Chapter 10: Finding Fyodorova

Peggy didn't want Tony and Steve going back to New York without a bodyguard, so she put them up in a room at the hotel that night. It was quite fancy by Steve's standards, with a big television, comfortable sofas, and two queen-sized beds, and the wood paneling and warm autumn colours gave it more personality than his quarters at SHIELD. Tony, however, didn't even look around, but went straight for the desk and pulled up a chair to sit down with his notes, pushing a couple of magazines aside as he did.

For a moment he just sat there with the pages in front of him, staring at the wall. Then he leaned forward until his forehead touched the table.

"If you want to sleep, you can," said Steve.

"Yeah," said Tony into the wood.

"I haven't forgotten about your Mom," Steve added, as he realized what the problem must be. "I'll talk to her, but we've got to finish this first."

"I know. I gotta finish what Dad started." Tony scowled and sat up again. "I'm gonna need some coffee."

"You need a nap. You'll think better if you've slept," Steve told him.

"Yeah, that's what's _important_ , isn't it?" sighed Tony. "I need to do math, because Dad's not here."

Steve sighed – they didn't have time for Tony's issues right now. "Tony," he began.

"No, it's fine," Tony said. He sat up again and sharpened his pencil. "That's what I was _born_ for, after all."

"Tony," Steve repeated.

"If I don't do it, then there's no point in even _having_ me here," Tony said. He tapped his pencil on the desk a few times, then started writing. "I wonder what he would have done if I hadn't turned out to be smart. He probably would have put me up for adoption and tried again."

Steve shook his head. He would have tried to offer comfort, but he still remembered Tony's angry reaction to his platitudes at Howard's funeral. If he said something dumb or cliché, it would just make the situation worse. "Do you want to rent another movie?" he tried. Steve wasn't sure he _liked_ Tony's taste in science fiction, but the young man was definitely hinting that he wanted something to do besides more homework.

"No," said Tony. "This is more important." He glanced at the magazines he'd pushed aside. "Did you see that?" he asked, tapping the top one with the end of his pencil.

Steve pulled the magazine over to look. It was some tabloid or other, a few days old – the headline was _Captain America's New Love_ , and it bore a picture somebody had managed to take of him and Eva crossing the lobby of the Plaza hotel. Inset was a photograph of Eva, probably from one of her ad campaigns, with the caption _American Hero and European Sexpot?_ Steve was about to throw it aside in disgust, both at the gossip and at their description of Eva, but then he hesitated. His eye was drawn to Eva's left eyebrow.

There was no mole.

Of course, Steve told himself, they would cover it with makeup for such a portrait, or even paint it over on the picture itself. But he found himself wondering... had the mole been there when he'd spoken to Eva at the park? He didn't remember seeing it, but he hadn't looked for it. The woman in the hospital definitely looked as if she'd been shot. Had it been _her_ Steve had spoken to instead of the real Eva Natter? That would explain why her laugh was different, but it didn't make _sense_. Not unless Herr Baumhauer had some kind of warning that there was a threat. How was that possible, when they hadn't known Steve would come that day?

The Winter Soldier was definitely not an obsessed fan. Had they been worried about some _other_ danger, and the attempt on Steve's life was just a coincidence? Steve didn't like coincidences. If it had been the body double in the park, how had she been able to talk to Steve as if she knew him? And if Herr Baumhauer were worried about the Winter Soldier, then just who the hell was Eva Natter?

Of one thing, Steve was quite sure: he wouldn't find out by asking Peggy. It was definitely time to find Fyodorova. As for the fact that he apparently trusted a former Russian sleeper agent to give him answers he wouldn't get from the woman he'd once planned to marry... well, he wasn't going to think about that too hard.

* * *

In the morning they went to Dulles to board a private plane back to New York. Steve had protested that his car was still parked in the hotel, and Peggy told him she would have somebody else drive it home for him. He watched from a SHIELD vehicle as she handed over the key, and couldn't help noticing that the man she'd selected for the job was six foot one, with broad shoulders and blond hair. She was afraid of another attempt on Steve's life, so she was sending a decoy, just as Herr Baumhauer had possibly done for Eva.

Steve didn't like that. That woman, whoever and whatever she was, did not deserve to die for Eva – whoever and whatever _she_ was. This man didn't deserve to be in danger for Steve.

"Who's that?" he asked, as Peggy joined them in the car.

"A very capable agent in a bullet-proof vest," she replied.

At least she understood that the decision would upset him. Steve glanced at Tony, sitting next to him and still hunched over his math. That morning he'd found the kid asleep face-down on the desk, drooling on his papers, with the black dinosaur bird curled up next to his head. When and why Tony had let the animal out Steve didn't know, but it apparently hadn't tried to hide or run away. It was now back in the cage, grooming the feathers on its legs. While these were fluffy around the toes, higher up they were longer and more like flight feathers, as if it almost had two sets of wings.

They waited in the car while airport employees de-iced the plane. The silence was uncomfortable. In the last few months, as Steve and Peggy adjusted to their new circumstances, they'd become quite at ease with each other – now that they'd had a proper _argument_ , the awkwardness was back. It was a different, more personal type of awkwardness than produced by the initial sudden age gap, and Steve responded to it differently. Back then he'd wanted to avoid her. Now he wanted to plug up the silence with words.

He didn't want to talk about the decoy, because that would lead to another argument. So would any mention of Fyodorova, or of the child she'd had with her – the one she believed to be a princess. If he brought _that_ up, Peggy would be angry with him again for not telling her things, and she had no right. He would have to find something safer.

"How's Janet Pym doing?" he asked.

"They're expecting her out of hospital tomorrow," Peggy replied. She was looking out the window, watching de-icing fluid run down the sides of the plane. "Barring any unforeseen complications. She's very resilient. Dives headfirst into situations and rarely comes out with anything worse than a bruise or two." Peggy still did not look at Steve, but he could see the corners of her lips twitching.

"Remind you of somebody, huh?" he asked.

"It's not intentional," said Peggy. "People like that just seem to _happen_ to me. I suppose it's because the reckless ones go in and get things done while the rest of us are still dicking about trying to _plan_."

"I always did wonder what you saw in me," said Steve.

"So did I," Peggy replied, smiling properly now as she finally met Steve's eyes.

He breathed out. Apparently it was okay – for now, at least. He wasn't sure whether that might change when the next problem or lie cropped up, but Peggy and her family were the last people Steve really had who represented a direct connection to his past. He didn't want to lose her.

* * *

When they landed at LaGuardia, representatives of the NYPD were there to meet them, as were SHIELD personnel. Some files and images were exchanged, and somebody gave Steve a copy of the New York Yellow Pages, which he'd had Peggy request, and a picture of Konstantina Fyodorova. It was the one from her old SHIELD security badge, showing a woman with fluffy, ash-blonde hair, staring neutrally into the camera. She was quite a pretty woman, Steve observed – but then, from what Peggy had told him of the Black Widows, 'pretty' was one of the things they were chosen for. Pretty women made men let their guard down, and there was no better example than Howard Stark. Steve hoped Tony would be smarter about that.

Fyodorova was also a very different _kind_ of beautiful than Eva Natter, and Steve supposed that had to do with each woman's desired image. Eva was meant to be a goddess, an unattainable fantasy, and everything from the makeup that covered the tiniest imperfection – like the mysterious mole – to her choice of Hallowe'en costume – Cleopatra, an exotic queen – was intended to emphasize that. Eva Natter was meant to be appreciated from afar. Konstantina Fyodorova, if she were going to do her job, had to be approachable. Hers was therefore a more down-to-earth type of beauty, a smiling girl next door.

All women did that, of course. Peggy's wide-shouldered blazers and red lipstick were a species of the same thing, intended to project power and authority. Maria Stark's pearls and pastels were the image of the supportive businessman's wife. That was how women operated – they knew they would be judged first by their appearance, so they put a lot of effort into the message that appearance was intended to transmit. It did make Steve wonder, though, if he knew anything at all about who Peggy or Eva really were... any more than he'd known who Fyodorova was when he'd met her as 'Connie Fletcher'.

"Are we going back to your place?" Tony asked, as they got into another van. "Because if it's not a problem I kinda wanna go to the university. One of the profs at MIT had written a couple of papers on wormholes that I'd like to look at, and the library at Empire State should have copies of the journals."

"Sure," said Steve He opened the driver's side door and indicated that the man inside should get out. He looked rather startled, but did so. "Don't go to my place, though," Steve added as he climbed in. "Get your stuff, and then go straight to SHIELD."

"Why SHIELD?" asked Tony.

"Because somebody's trying to kill me and I don't want him shooting you when he sees you in my apartment," Steve reminded him... he wasn't even sure of _that_ anymore, really, but he could still take precautions.

"Oh. Right." Tony nodded. "All right, meet you there. If Madame Director doesn't send me home again."

"She won't," Steve promised, and started the van. If Tony told Peggy about Stane's attempt to ground him, she would let him stay at SHIELD as long as he needed to. Because for all his passive-aggressive complaining last night, Tony had been right about one thing – they needed his brain.

Steve dropped Tony off at the Morningside Heights campus, and then he headed north. The Yellow Pages, open on the seat beside him, listed a number of addresses for Russian restaurants and grocery stores, and most of them seemed to be in the Fort Washington area. With his picture of Fyodorova in hand, Steve intended to visit as many of them as he could until he found somebody who'd seen her.

The day he'd spoke to 'Connie Fletcher' at SHIELD, after their disastrous mission to Mesto Dvenadstat in the Ukraine, she'd been eating borscht. She'd explained that this was her grandmother's comfort food, which Steve had accepted at the time – now he hoped the incident was a glimpse of whatever lay underneath Fyodorova's mask.

Maybe Russian food did comfort her and reminded her of home. Maybe her grandmother really had used to make her soup. In that case, she would want to have food like that even while living in hiding, and would probably have to go to Russian stores to get some of the more unusual ingredients. Hopefully, somebody at one of them would have seen and remembered her.

He parked outside the first place in the alphabetical list, put change in the meter, and went in. There he made the rounds of the employees, showing them the picture and asking if they'd seen this woman. They all shook their heads. Steve thanked them and went on to the next place. And the next.

By late afternoon, when he sat down for a coleslaw sandwich of some sort at a Russian deli within view of the George Washington Bridge, Steve was starting to worry he'd been wrong. Maybe her borscht was just another layer of pretense. Or maybe Fyodorova had figured he'd look for her in these sorts of places and had been avoiding them as a result. Maybe he was supposed to have paid attention to some _other_ kind of clue that he'd totally missed. Maybe she was just so good at disguising herself that none of the people had recognized her as the woman in the picture. Hell, maybe she'd left the country.

As he sat there thinking, one of the deli employees approached with a can of soda. This was a boy, probably younger than Tony, with light brown hair and a face pocked by severe acne. With the soda can balanced on a plate in his hands, he asked carefully, "are you Captain America?"

Steve sighed. "I used to be," he said.

"What's the password?" asked the boy.

"What?" Steve frowned at him.

"If Captain America comes here, I'm supposed to ask him for the password," the boy explained. "What is it?"

Steve put down his sandwich. "Who asked you to say that?"

The boy shook his head. "I can't tell you. Not until you give me the password?"

Fyodorova had never told Steve a password... the two of them had never had a chance to discuss how or even whether they'd get in touch again. If she were the one this kid had talked to, she must be expecting Steve to guess. What sorts of things had they talked about that would make a good password? _Mir_ , maybe? _Natalia_? Or...

" _Zima_ ," Steve realized. The Winter Soldier.

The boy nodded. He put the plate with the soda can down on the table, then said, "she already paid for you," and turned and walked away.

Steve picked up the can, and found something written on the napkin underneath it – an address. The numbers were familiar, and Steve tried to place them on his mental map of New York City. It would only be a couple of blocks away. Not far from...

"You _meatball_ ," he said aloud to himself as he figured it out. Of course – it was the place where Agent Troy had sent him to meet a spy who knew what HYDRA was trying to do with the _Odyssey_ mission. He'd gotten there and found Fyodorova ahead of him. She wanted to be found, and she wanted _Steve_ to find her, so for the past couple of weeks she'd been waiting in a place she expected him and only him to look for her, while he'd sat around waiting for _her_ to come see _him_.

He wondered if leaving the message with the kid in the deli had been part of her original plan, or whether she'd added it a few days later when she decided he was too dumb to find her alone.

When he'd gone to the building that evening in April, Steve had entered through a window after climbing up the fire escape. Tonight he decided to be more polite, and pressed the buzzer for the appropriate apartment. There was no reply over the intercom, but he head the clunk as the door unlocked, so he opened it and headed inside.

The front foyer of the building was small, dim, and dirty, with a cracked tile floor and walls that had been repainted so many times that it was sagging away in sheets. A homeless man was asleep on the landing at the foot of the stairs, but there was an 'out of order' sign on the elevator, so Steve stepped over him and climbed up to the fourth floor.

There were six apartments on each floor. Steve went to number 4D, knocked, and waited.

Again, there was no answer. He knocked again.

A minute ticked by – Steve watched the hands move on his watch. Maybe Fyodorova wasn't home. She must have to get food and money from someplace... Steve wasn't sure if he believed she would get a _job_ , but there must be plenty of errands that would take her away from where she was living. Perhaps he ought to just wait here for her.

Somebody had opened the door downstairs, though. On a hunch, Steve tried the knob. It wasn't locked, so he cautiously pushed the door open, and stepped inside.

There were no lights on in the apartment, and with all the doors shut the long hallway was pitch black. Steve felt his way up to the first room, and peeked inside. A shaft of orange light was coming in by the window, a mix of the last of the sunset and the first of the city lights coming on. It wasn't much, but it was enough to show that there was no furniture, and nobody in the room. He went on the next, but that too was empty. If Fyodorova wanted him to think about the last time he'd encountered her here, where would she be?

She would be in the bathroom. That was where Steve had _almost_ caught her murdering the HYDRA agent. He found the door, and opened it.

"Stop," a low voice behind him said. "Put your hands where I can see them."

Steve stood up straight, raising his hands on either side of his head. "Can I turn around?" he asked.

"Yes," said the voice. The light came on.

Steve turned, and found himself looking down the barrel of a handgun. At the other end of it was Konstantina Fyodorova. She was wearing a loose navy blue blouse and a pair of dark jeans – colours that would melt into an unlit room rather than standing out as either paler or blacker. Her hair was still dyed brown, as it had been when she'd turned up in Tony's bedroom. There was no sign of the little girl.

She nodded once, then holstered the gun and immediately started patting him down. Steve held his arms out on either side for her to do so.

"No wires," he promised. "Peggy doesn't even know I'm here."

"That's not who I'm hiding from" said Fyodorova.

Steve let her continue her body search while he looked at the hallway and bathroom. Both were completely empty – the only evidence that anyone lived here was a bit of water in the bottom of the sink, and that might be merely a leaky tap. "Who _are_ you hiding from?"

"My old bosses," she replied, running her hands up and down his back under his shirt. "I thought I'd shaken them, but apparently they're still following me. The Winter Soldier got into town the day after I went to see you at Stark's."

Steve stiffened – now here was a _third_ possibility... but no, that made even less sense than the idea that he'd been after Eva Natter. "He's not after you," said Steve. "He's after me. He took a potshot at me in the park and nearly killed Eva Natter."

"Who?"

"Eva Natter. The model from Germany? Coach purses?"

Fyodorova snorted. "Oh, _her_. You know she's a spy, right?"

"Yeah, although apparently I was the last person to find out," Steve said. "Are you finished?"

"Short of reaching down your pants, yes." Fyodorova stepped back and let him turn around again. "Even if _Zima_ is here for Natter, that doesn't mean his handlers won't send him after me if they find out I'm here. I'm even higher on their hit list than I am on Madame Director's. Come have a seat. We've got a lot to talk about."

"Yes, we do." Steve caught her hand. "But not here."

She paused, cocking her head. "Where did you have in mind?"

"SHIELD," said Steve.

"No," she said.

Steve tightened his grip – he half-expected her to vanish in front of his eyes all over again, and he couldn't let that happen. "What you want to tell me has something to do with what happened in Tønsberg, doesn't it? And now at the _Achilles_. SHIELD needs to know about that."

"Call me a cynic if you want, but I don't think that ends well for me," said Fyodorova. She did not try to pull her hand away, but Steve could feel the muscles in her arm tense. "I'm a wanted criminal in this country – I could be imprisoned or even executed for espionage. Or deported. If I'm sent back to the USSR again, they won't even bother finding something to charge me with. They'll shoot me on sight."

"I won't let Peggy deport you," Steve said.

"I thought _she_ was _your_ boss," said Fyodorova.

"She trusts my judgment," Steve told her Under the circumstances that wasn't entirely true, but Steve was going to insist. "I've already talked to her about it."

"That could mean _so many things_ ," Fyodorova observed.

"She's had the police looking for you," Steve added. "You'll make a better impression if you come with me than if they have to drag you in."

"I'd like to see them try," said Fyodorova with a smirk.

There had to be some way he could convince her. Steve looked around again. "Where's the little girl?"

Fyodorova jumped a little, and looked around if expecting to see the child. There was no sign of her, which was apparently a relief. "She's hiding," Fyodorova told Steve. "I won't let you send _her_ back, either. You have no idea what they want to do with _her_."

That was a possible bargaining chip, and Steve seized on it. "Look, I honestly don't know what Peggy might do with _you_ ," he admitted, "but I can _promise_ you she won't hurt the girl. Peggy has two kids of her own, and two grandkids now. She won't send a toddler into any sort of danger."

Fyodorova bit her lip.

"I've been wondering," Steve said. "How did you get out of Tony's room before Maria came in?"

"We didn't," said Fyodorova.

"You didn't?"

"We hid under the bed until everybody left the room later that evening," she said. "I didn't have enough warning to leave. I didn't know if somebody might open the closet or the curtains before we could get away."

Steve hadn't even thought of that, and was slightly disappointed the answer had been so simple. "Look," he said, getting back on topic. "SHIELD will have quarters for you that are a lot more comfortable than a cold, dark apartment, and they can keep you safe from the Winter Soldier if anybody in New York can. And I _promise_ you, they will protect that little girl. She's just a child. She hasn't done anything wrong. Not even Peggy can possibly be that paranoid."

Fyodorova was still uncertain.

"SHIELD needs to know what's going on. If you can help us with that, we'll take it," Steve said. "Remember, you helped us get into _Mir_. We know information is valuable, no matter where it comes from."

"If you can promise me Natalia will be safe," said Fyodorova. "All right."

"All right." Steve let go of her hand, still worried she would run away as soon as he no longer had a grip on her. She didn't, though – she turned towards the kitchen.

"Natalia!" she called.

There was a scraping sound, and cardboard box that had been sitting in the space where the oven had once been began moving across the floor to the doorway. It scooted right up to Fyodorova's feet, and then the lid lifted and a frightened little face looked out. Steve wondered what the child thought about all this. Was it a fun game, or did she know they were hiding in fear of their lives?

Fyodorova picked the girl up. " _Eto Kapitan Amerika_ ," she told the little girl. " _On budet derzhat' vas v bezopasnosti, dazhe yesli mne pridetsya ostavit' vas._ " Steve understood enough Russian to get an idea of the shape of that – _he'll keep you safe, even if I have to leave you_.

Natalia put her arms around Fyodorova's neck. " _Don't leave me_ ," she whimpered.

" _I don't want to, Solnyshka_ ," said Fyodorova, " _but I might not have a choice_."

Her eyes were on Steve as she spoke – she was trying to gauge how much he understood. He wondered what his face looked like. He wouldn't have expected Fyodorova to be so tender as to call a child _little sunshine_ , but then again, maybe that, too, was a put-on. "Do you have coats?" he asked.

They bundled up in coats and hats, a little too much for the current weather but helpful for obscuring their faces, and Steve led the the two Russians back down the steps. The homeless man was still asleep on the landing. They did not wake him.

As they approached the front door, Fyodorova grabbed Steve's sleeve. "Wait," she said. "Somebody's waiting for us."

"Who?" asked Steve, and took a look. The glass door was covered with frost and there was a spiderweb of cracks in the upper pane, but when he put an eye up to it he could see two police officers loitering by the metal bench out front. "Oh," he said, "no, that's fine. Remember I told you Peggy had the police looking for you? I'll tell them who I am, and it'll be fine." After the events at the museum the other day, they probably wouldn't try to make any trouble for Captain America.

Fyodorova looked skeptical, but Steve headed outside, hand held up in greeting. "Hello," he said. "I'm Captain Steve Rogers."

The bigger of the two, and overweight but intimidatingly tall man with a shaved head, stepped forward. "Are you, now?" he asked.

That was Steve's first clue that he'd misjudged the situation. "Uh, yes, I am," he said.

The officer put a hand on his shoulder. "We'd like you to come down to the station with us," he said. "You're wanted for questioning."

Steve glanced back at Fyodorova, who was waiting in the doorway with Natalia in her arms. She was tense, ready to fight or run if she had to.

"Is this about the museum?" Steve asked. "Because I thought that was taken care of."

"No," said the cop. The name embroidered on his pocket was Przybylski, which Steve recognized as Polish but would not have tried to pronounce. "You're wanted in connection with a kidnapping. A friend of the child's mother phoned up and said you were looking for him shortly before he vanished. Can you come with us, please?"

"A _kidnapping_?" Steve asked. The idea was so entirely absurd that it took him a moment to realize the man was referring to Tony Stark. Technically Tony _was_ a minor, and Steve _had_ removed him from his mother's home without permission, but was Stane really going to stoop to having the _police_ cause trouble for Steve in order to get him back? Apparently so.

"Tony is fine," said Steve. "He's safer with me than he is with Stane."

"Is that an admission?" the other cop asked. He was smaller than Przybylski, but younger and fitter. His pocket said _Lopez_.

Steve groaned. If he got arrested, Peggy would probably send Fury to bail him out again, but in the mean time what would happen to Fyodorova and Natalia? Steve was sure if he let them out of his sight, he would never see them again.

"Can we compromise?" he asked. "I've got something I have to do first, and then I'll come with you guys. You can give me a time limit. You can even follow us back to SHIELD," he suggested.

Behind him, Fyodorova set Natalia down on the ground. "Wait here, _Solnyshka_ ," she said, and then walked towards the policemen.

"Fyodorova, don't," Steve said. Whatever she was planning to do, he was positive it would make the situation worse.

She walked right past him. "Is there a problem, officers?" she asked Przybylski sweetly, and then without waiting for an answer swung at him. He reached for his gun, but that was exactly what she'd expected. She pulled out of her feint, knocked the gun out of his hands, and in one smooth motion grabbed his arm and laid him flat on the ground. He howled as his wrist broke. Officer Lopez had his own gun out by now, but Fyodorova kicked him in the face, then stood up, grabbed him, and flung him over her head to land in a heap at Natalia's feet. While Fyodorova knocked out Przybylski by slamming his head on the icy concrete, Natalia calmly picked up the gun Lopez had dropped.

"Whoa," the man said, holding up his hands. "Okay, sweetheart, put the gun down."

"Shut your mouth, pig," said Natalia calmly, in perfect English.

Fyodorova used the policemen's own handcuffs to fix them to the metal gate that provided access to the basement level where the super lived, and then took the keys from their car and dropped them down the nearest grate.

"Well, _you_ weren't going to do anything," she said to Steve as he stared at her. "You can thank me later."


	11. Chapter 11: Cold Welcome

Steve climbed into the driver's seat of his car and did up his belt while Fyodorova put Natalia in the back. He wondered if it meant anything that she put the child in separately, rather than holding her in her lap. The latter was probably illegal in this more safety-conscious age, but Fyodorova was hardly the sort of person to let that stop her. If she were giving Steve the ability to drive away with Natalia but not her, she must trust him.

The idea that Steve was somebody a disgraced Soviet undercover agent felt she could _trust_ was at once flattering and rather confusing.

With Fyodorova in the seat next to him, Steve started the car and headed back downtown. He wasn't going to question her about the incidents in Norway and Baffin Bay – he would let Peggy, or some trained interrogator, do that when they arrived at SHIELD. Since they were alone right now, though, there was something else he wanted to talk to her about.

"Tell me about _Zima_ ," he said.

Her eyes flicked to the side as she studied his expression without actually turning. "Aren't I supposed to be telling SHIELD, not you?"

"You're supposed to tell SHIELD what's going on in the arctic," Steve said. "The Winter Soldier is for me and Tony. Howard Stark was my friend and his father, and now I'm the next target, which is putting my friends in danger, Tony included. Peggy doesn't want me going after him myself, but I promised Tony I'd get this guy." He'd promised Eva, too.

Fyodorova smiled a little. "Yeah," she said. "The promises you make to a child are the important ones, aren't they?" This was not sarcasm. She meant every word.

"Yes, they are," Steve agreed. He wondered what it was she'd promised Natalia. Merely safety, or something more?

"The Winter Soldier was found as POW in a HYDRA base when the Soviet Army was cleaning up after World War II," Fyodorova explained. "The operatives who'd worked there had fled or committed suicide, so he was the only one alive in the place. The military wanted to question him, but it turned out there wasn't enough of him left. He'd been tortured and experimented on until he couldn't even remember his own name. So they had some of their own captured HYDRA scientists help them turn him into a killing machine."

"Of course they did," said Steve darkly. In this world he'd awakened in, that was apparently just the sort of thing people _did_.

"They keep him in cryo between missions, so he won't age or deteriorate without exercise," Fyodorova went on, "and fry his brain after each kill so he doesn't start to recover. He doesn't know anything outside of his orders. I don't think he's really the one you want to go after, Captain. He's not the one who ordered Stark killed, and he didn't have any choice about carrying it out. It'd be like breaking the gun but ignoring the man who pulled the trigger."

What she was describing – a man broken down into nothing but a vessel for orders, a sort of robot made of flesh – was horrible, and yet Steve couldn't shake the cold rage he felt at this faceless being. This empty vessel had murdered Tony's father, taken one of Steve's few remaining friends from him, and hit Eva with the bullet meant for Steve himself. "Break the gun and it can never be fired again," he said.

"The killer can find another weapon," Fyodorova rejoined. "I can tell you where they keep him, but I have to warn you that killing him there isn't something the Soviet government will be able to ignore. You're not a free agent, you know. You're Captain America. What you do is what America does, whether you like it or not. The face of America destroying the USSR's secret weapon will be considered an act of war."

"Why did you offer to tell me how to get to him in the first place, if you were just gonna try to talk me out of it?" Steve asked.

"To get your attention," said Fyodorova.

That figured, and he couldn't deny it had worked. "I'm not planning to go to Russia right now," Steve said, "but if this guy comes looking for _me_ , I'll have to do something about him." Between the crimes the man had already committed and his apparent semi-machine status, Steve couldn't imagine feeling a bit sorry about it, either. He'd regretted many of the deaths he'd caused during the war, when he'd found things like a corpse clutching a ring on a chain, or a photograph of a family taped up inside a tank. He'd regretted everything that reminded him how even HYDRA mooks were human beings. He would not regret this.

"That's fair," said Fyodorova. "That's self-defense. It's you hunting down the base that would be trouble."

"Where is it?" Steve asked, mostly to see if she'd tell him.

"Krasnoyarsk, north of the Yenesei River," she replied. "There's some sort of natural radioactive source in the area that they use for power. I can point it out for you on a map. It's not an easy place to get to, and I'm not going to help you."

"Then why are you telling me?" Steve repeated.

"Because I said I would."

Steve pulled into SHIELD's parking garage and went inside. Fyodorova followed, carrying Natalia – the girl had not said a word since telling the police officer to be silent. Ordinarily Steve would have gone straight to Peggy's office, but today he went instead to the front security desk. "I need to speak to Madame Director," he said to the man working there. "Is she in the building?"

The security guard, a Latin fellow with a bristly mustache, looked puzzled. "I think she's in her office," he replied. "You can go up any time, Captain Rogers." Steve was allowed to knock on Peggy's door any time he liked, and everybody who worked in the building knew that.

"I'd like you to call her down here," Steve said. He wanted to introduce Peggy and Fyodorova in a place where there were plenty of witnesses. That would hopefully make Fyodorova feel safer. She trusted Steve but did not trust Peggy – and Steve wasn't sure he trusted _either_ of them. Meeting in public would force both women to be civil.

"Uh, sure, Captain," said the security guard, even more confused. He picked up the phone and placed the call.

"Tell her I've found our source," said Steve. Peggy would know what he meant.

The guard nodded and passed on the message.

The response was immediate and shocking – the guard was still on the phone when an alarm went off and at least two dozen armed men and women rushed into the room, shouting for everybody to get down on the floor. Agents, staff members, and even the security guards obeyed, while Steve just stood there stunned as people in black SHIELD fatigues swarmed forward. Soon he, Fyodorova, and Natalia were surrounded by a circle of guns.

Steve looked at Fyodorova. She shook her head slightly and rolled her eyes in a non-verbal but crystal-clear _I told you so_ , and then put Natalia on the floor. "Lie down," she told the child, and then got down beside her with her hands over the back of her neck.

Steve didn't move. All this wasn't meant for him. He was going to stand his ground and make sure Peggy _listened_ to Fyodorova before throwing her on a boat back to Russia.

But Peggy didn't appear. Instead, one of the gunmen raised his arm, and people moved in to pull Fyodorova and Natalia out of their layers of winter clothes, followed by quite a bit of what they were wearing underneath as well. They found three guns and two knives secreted on Fyodorova's person, and Natalia had stuffed the gun she'd taken from the cop into her own jacket, despite it being far too big for her to practically used. The agents took the weapons away, and then began to snap handcuffs on both woman and child.

"Hey!" Steve protested. "What are you doing?"

"Director's orders, Captain," the leader said. His followers forced Fyodorova and Natalia to their feet, both of them still in their underwear, and began to lead them away in different directions.

It was now, when Natalia realized she was going to be separated from Fyodorova, that she began to struggle. " _Nyet!_ " she shrieked, kicking her legs and wriggling. " _Nyet! Nyet! Nyet! Konyshka! Konyshka!_ "

"Keep us together," said Fyodorova. She did not struggle, and her voice was firm rather than panicked. "Keep us together, please, I'm the only person she knows. She barely speaks English."

Steve wondered why Fyodorova didn't fight. Surely she could take these guys down as easily as she had the cops... but there were far more of the agents, and unlike Przybylski and Lopez, they knew what to expect of her. She couldn't do anything without getting shot.

That meant it was up to Steve. He hurried to free the little girl first. "What the _hell_ are you doing?" he demanded. "She's _two_."

"I told you, Director's orders," the man snarled back, stepping between Steve and the kicking and screaming child. One of Natalia's flailing feet caught him in the back of the knee, and he swore and turned around, raising his gun to hit her with the butt end of it.

Steve wasn't going to let him do _that_ , though. He ripped the weapon out of the man's hands and fit it to his own shoulder, aiming it at the agent's face. "Let her go," he ordered.

Somebody else pressed a stun gun into Steve's neck. The current that coursed through him would have knocked out a normal person, but Steve was not a normal person – and that was almost worse, since he was wide awake to feel the pain as his muscles spasmed and his teeth clenched, and a nasty metallic taste filled his mouth. When he stopped seeing spots he was on his knees, the gun was on the floor ten feet away, and the men were leaving the room with the screaming toddler.

Fyodorova, too, was gone.

The alarm stopped, and people in the room started getting up and going back to whatever they'd been doing, talking in hushed, awkward voices as they tried to pretend that nothing untoward had just happened. Steve shook his twitching limbs and pulled his coat off, furious. _He_ was not going to pretend that everything was back to normal. _He_ was going to find where they'd taken the Russians and...

"Steve."

He spun around, and found that Peggy had appeared behind the security desk. Suddenly, Steve's rage had a _target_. He'd been mad at her earlier for not telling him things he should have known. _Now_ he was well beyond mad. It not for the desk in the way, he could have thrown her across the room.

A moment later he realized what he was thinking and felt cold. The very fact that _Captain America_ was thinking about striking a seventy-year-old woman, a seventy-year-old woman who was _Peggy_ , was one of the most utterly horrifying things that had ever entered his head. It was enough in itself to push him back down to a much more acceptable level of sanity, yet the anger remaining bubbling hot under his breastbone... what the hell had she just _done_?

"What was that?" he demanded.

"I've had a welcome party on standby for her ever since you told me she was in town," said Peggy. "She's dangerous, Steve. The most dangerous adversaries I ever faced were women just like her. I'd rather take on Schmidt than a black widow."

"You never took on Schmidt!" said Steve. "You don't know what he's capable of! Where are you taking them?"

"To maximum security lockup, in separate parts of the building, under twenty-four hour guard," said Peggy, as if this were the most reasonable thing in the world. "We can question them there."

"That little girl is two or three years old!" Steve protested.

"They start young," Peggy said. "Tim was stabbed once by one who couldn't have been more than seven."

"I promised her Natalia would be safe!" Steve thumped on the granite countertop. "That's the only reason she came with me – because I promised her you wouldn't hurt a child! And then you just dragged the kid away like she's a criminal!"

Peggy's eyes narrowed. "Not all creatures who _look_ like children actually _are_ ," she informed him. "It's not the 1940's anymore, Steve. We cannot _afford_ to be nice to these people!"

"Damn it, Peggy, she's all that little girl _has_!" said Steve, and brought his fist down on the counter again. It was only meant to be another thump, to emphasize how angry he was, but there was a bang like a gunshot, and the slab of stone – an inch thick – cracked into three pieces. The smallest one slid off the counter and landed on the floor, breaking several of the tiles. People turned their heads to stare, and once again Steve had to force himself to calm down and remember that this was _Peggy_ he was talking to. It didn't seem to help. "At least keep them together," he said.

"If I keep them together they may help one another!" Peggy snapped. "Fyodorova escaped before, I am _not_ letting her escape again."

"She has nowhere to go if she _does_ escape," Steve reminded her. "If she goes back to the Soviet Union she'll be killed."

"That's what _she_ told you," Peggy reminded him, still talking as if what she was saying were perfectly ordinary, instead of paranoid and cruel. "I've been inquiring about Fyodorova since she vanished, and the people who _ought_ to be her superiors are still denying she exists. That's not something you do with a wanted criminal."

Steve took a deep breath, but he didn't even know what he wanted to say with it. "Peggy..."

"She's _using_ you, Steve," said Peggy firmly. "We have to use her without being used back, and that's all we _can_ do with people like that. The Black Widows are trained from childhood – from as young as that little red-haired girl. They're engineered psychopaths. I've thought I could control them before, and I was always wrong. You can't treat her like a human being, because she will only use that to her advantage."

The way she described Fyodorova sounded an awful lot like the way Fyodorova herself had described the Winter Soldier. "Then we can't punish her for following orders," Steve said coldly. "You don't blame a gun for shooting somebody, you blame whoever pulled the trigger."

"Or if you _can't_ get to the shooter, you lock the gun away so it can never be fired again," said Peggy.

"So the shooter will get a new weapon," said Steve.

"Let's get some coffee and then we'll talk to her," Peggy said. "I want you present. She believes she can trust you, and we'll be able to use that."

 _That_ made Steve wanted to turn around and storm out, just to be sure that Peggy would get nothing from Fyodorova at all. What made him stay was the knowledge that she probably wouldn't anyway – there was no way Fyodorova would still believe she could trust him _now_. He wanted to be there the moment Peggy realized that.

* * *

When Steve next saw Fyodorova, a little more than an hour later, she was alone in a tiny, bare interrogation room. There were foam pyramids on all the walls, to keep any sound from getting in or out, and cameras in the corner. The only furniture was two chairs. Fyodorova was shackled to one of these, but was sitting up straight, fierce-faced and defiant, when Steve came in and sat down in the other.

"This wasn't my idea," he said.

"Is that why you took so damned long to find me?" asked Fyodorova. "Because you were waiting for her orders?"

"No!" said Steve. "I just assumed _you'd_ come back to _me_ if it was urgent! I've had a lot on my mind," he added defensively. There were Tony's family problems, the thing with the _Achilles_ , his non-starter of a relationship with Eva... he felt he could be forgiven for missing something that was really not at all obvious. "Peggy just wanted to ship you back to the USSR. I told her we needed to talk to you..."

"So it _was_ your idea," said Fyodorova.

Steve sat up a little straighter. "Would you let me explain myself?" he asked. "I just wanted us to _talk_ to you. You said your had information about something weird going on in the arctic, and that's exactly what we're dealing with! I had no idea Peggy was going to pull out the big guns the moment you stepped in the door, and I _definitely_ didn't know she would treat Natalia the same way." The fact that she'd been willing to seize a child like that, as if this tiny girl were already a criminal, was chilling. That she'd given the job to a man who apparently thought nothing of hitting children in the face with a rifle made Steve want to break things.

Fyodorova met his eyes for a moment without blinking, and then slowly shook her head. "I don't believe you."

"I hope you don't think you're gonna lecture us about trust," said Steve. "Not when you were an undercover agent here for... how many years?" Yet she'd been willing to put Natalia into his car.

"I'm not going to lecture anybody, Captain Rogers," Fyodorova replied. "I just wonder what I missed. What I read about you made you seem like a soldier, not a secret-keeper."

Steve glanced up at one of the cameras. He knew Peggy was watching – she would be waiting for him to bring up the subject of the arctic – and he hoped he'd gotten his point across. Fyodorova _didn't_ trust him. The only thing he could do was deny her accusations, and since that was exactly what he would have done if they'd been _true_ , that would get them nowhere.

Peggy had denied that she'd known the _Achilles_ incident was related to the tesseract. Was it true after all? He couldn't tell anymore.

"I told her we needed to ask you about the arctic," said Steve.

"I want Natalia freed," Fyodorova replied.

"Freed?" he echoed.

"Yes. I want her to have parents who love her. I want her to go to school. I want her to grow up to be whatever she wants to be. Do you understand?" asked Fyodorova.

"You thought she was a princess," Steve reminded her.

"I still do, but she's not safe as a princess. She's a _child_. She was the only one I managed to get out." Fyodorova lifted her chin slightly. She was trained to show false emotions, Peggy had said, but right now her face was the marble mask of a Greek statue, completely neutral. That in itself spoke volumes, Steve thought. She'd probably risked her life to rescue this girl from something... and she would probably rather die than break whatever promise she'd made to her.

Steve got to his feet. "I'll talk to Peggy," he said.

Peggy did not prove to be a particularly receptive ear. When Steve emerged from the interrogation room, he found her already shaking her head, her gray-streaked curls bouncing on her shoulders. "No, Steve," she said.

"Christ's sake, Peggy," he said.

"I know you mean well," she told him, "but that child is dangerous. We don't even know for sure she's a child! They've done extensive research into anti-aging techniques..."

"You really think a _toddler_ is going to overpower anybody?" asked Steve.

"It's not what she's _physically_ capable of that worries me," Peggy said.

"She's _two_ ," Steve repeated. "Do you have any idea how crazy you sound?"

"I am trying to protect this country!" Peggy insisted.

"Well, Fyodorova's not going to make that any easier until she's sure Natalia is safe," said Steve. "Why don't we just bring the girl in here and see if that helps?"

Peggy sighed. It was clear that she didn't even like the idea of the two Russians being in the same _building_ , but the more she tried to make Steve see that they were dangerous, the more he felt sorry for them. Wasn't that exactly what Fyodorova wanted him to feel, though? _Was_ she just manipulating him? Then again, wasn't Peggy trying to do exactly the same thing? Thinking about it made his head hurt. He wanted to go roll in the snow and see if that would clear it.

"Do you have a better idea how to get her to talk to us?" asked Steve. Peggy did, frequently, have better ideas.

This was not, however, one of those times. "No. I don't. All right," she said reluctantly. "I'll have the child brought in, and we'll see if that accomplishes anything."

When Natalia was marched into the room where Steve was waiting, her face was red and crusty from crying and there were marks on her wrists and ankles where she'd been shackled. It made Steve feel sick to look at her – how could anyone with children and grandchildren of their own treat a little girl this way? She saw Steve, and immediately moved to hide from him behind the legs of one of her captors. He got down on one knee, and held out a hand to her.

" _Ya ne prichinyu tebe vreda_ ," he said, hoping his memory served him and that really was Russian for _I won't hurt you_. "Do you want to see _Konyshka_?"

The little girl inched forward, nodding. Steve reached out a little further, but let _her_ take _his_ hand rather than him taking hers. "It's okay," he promised.

Her small fingers closed around two of his, and he straightened up and led her back into the room. Fyodorova was still cuffed to the chair, but she apparently forgot for a moment, as she tried to jump to her feet when she saw Natalia.

" _Konyshka_!" the girl let go of Steve and ran to scramble into Fyodorova's lap, throwing her arms around her caretaker's neck. Fyodorova couldn't hug back with her wrists cuffed to the chair, but she bent to kiss the girl's cheek and to murmur Russian in her ear. Steve felt his eyes prick as he watched – if they were pretending, they were very good at it.

"I'll find her a home," Steve decided. He wasn't sure how he'd doe it, but there had to be _somewhere_ he could take this girl. Maybe the Wilsons would adopt her. She could be Sam's big sister. They didn't have a whole lot of money, but there was plenty of love in that family to go around, and Steve would be next door to watch out for her. "I promise," he added. "I don't know if you'll trust me on anything else, but I promise you that."

Fyodorova raised her head and searched his face for a moment. She was probing for any tiny tic, any sign of dishonesty – but Steve meant what he'd said, and it must have showed, because she nodded. "After we got out of the base at Krasnoyarsk, I knew I couldn't go west," she said. "So we went east and north, hoping to cross the Bering Strait. We traveled for a while with the Yakut. They live on the tundra with the reindeer. Some of them trade with the fishermen further north, so one of those parties offered to take us to the ocean."

Steve nodded, and sat down in the other chair. Peggy would probably already be telling her to skip to the important part, but Steve decided to just let her talk. She was only telling him this because she still felt she needed his help – that meant she wouldn't tell him any more or any less than _exactly_ what she thought he needed to know.

"The Yakut wouldn't travel by night," she went on. "Which seems sensible enough, since it's damned cold enough up there during the daytime. But when we were about to part ways, the one who spoke Russian told me that if I wanted to go anywhere at night, only do it when there was no blue aurora."

Steve leaned forward. "Blue aurora," he said.

"I asked for more details," said Fyodorova. "They've lived in that area for centuries and know everything there is to know about it. The man told me that the blue aurora was an omen of misfortune. It hypnotized people, who walked towards it and then never came back. And it was something _new_. It hadn't been there in his father's time, or his grandfather's."

Steve nodded.

"I didn't see it for myself until we got to Yanranay," Fyodorova continued. "We were well above the arctic circle and the sun was only up for a couple of hours each day, and I figured we'd stop in a town and warm up before we kept going. We arrived, however, to find the place completely deserted. Buildings still had furniture in them, everything was locked up, and there were signs up ordering an evacuation with a deadline over a year ago. We got some food out of the freezers, lit a fire, and found a place to sleep. My first theory was that there must have been some kind of nuclear accident, like Dvenadstat, but I didn't know of any nuclear plants or facilities near to there. Then Natalia woke me up in the middle of the night, and told me to come look at the blue aurora."

"What was it?" Steve asked.

"There was a _normal_ aurora going on, with big curtains of pink and green," she said, "but on the horizon there was this brilliant blue shining up in beams, like spotlights aimed at the sky. I decided we'd go and investigate a little when there was more light, but just as the sun was rising we heard engine sounds. A convoy came through on trucks and snowmobiles, heading down towards where the harbour had been. The vehicles had a logo painted on the side." Her tone was grim, significant.

"Yes?" Steve prompted.

"It wasn't a hammer and sickle, if you know what I mean," said Fyodorova.

"More like a skull and an octopus," Steve guessed.

"Yeah, more like that," Fyodorova nodded.

"What did you do?" Steve wanted to know.

"Nothing," she said. "I climbed up to the top of the building and watched them loading supplies onto and icebreaker. Then they sailed away, so I went back downstairs, got Natalia, and got the hell out of there. I had a child with me. I wasn't going to take on HYDRA all alone. I decided when I reached the States I would go and find _you_ , because you would understand that we have a common enemy."

Her voice was accusing now – _I trusted you and you betrayed me_.

"When you were up there, did you see anything strange?" Steve asked. "Like... things embedded in the walls that shouldn't have been? Or plants or animals that looked, I don't know, prehistoric?"

"It was empty. There wasn't a living thing for miles," said Fyodorova. "And I didn't explore much beyond the bare minimum to find food and shelter for myself and Natalia."

"Are you sure?" he insisted.

"Of course I'm sure!" she huffed. "What kind of risks do you think I'm going to take with a toddler in tow? Now, I'm not sure just how new this is," added. "The Yakut said it hadn't been around in his father's time – I couldn't get a better estimate than that, but I figure it's around ten or fifteen years. My superiors have suspected for at least that long that HYDRA has a major base of operations in Soviet territory, and a lot of them think Zola is still alive somewhere. His name keeps turning up in coded communications. The blue light..."

"Is a signature of the tesseract's energy," Steve interrupted. He'd met Arnim Zola only very briefly, but hadn't liked the man. "You think Zola is hiding out in the arctic?"

"It's only a theory," Fyodorova said. "He was _the_ expert on the tesseract, though, even more than Stark. If anybody could find a way to duplicate that energy without the actual object, it's him."

Steve drew in a tight breath as things fell together. "He's not duplicating it," he said. "He's drawing it out of other times. That's what Tony thinks is happening here, is some kind of time travel – he's going back to moments when the tesseract actually _was_ there, and he's drawing energy from it then!" He had no idea how such a thing might be possible, but it made as much sense as any other theory they'd come up with so far. "That's the blue aurora, _and_ the time thing!"

He rose from his seat. "I have to talk to Peggy."

"Great," said Fyodorova, rattling her handcuffs. "I'll just wait right here."


	12. Chapter 12: Birds of a Feather

Peggy was waiting just outside the interrogation room, watching and listening through a small, black and white television set. She stood up to greet Steve as he emerged, with a beaming smile on her face. "Steve, you are a _miracle_ worker!" she said, delighted.

Steve did not smile back at her. "How much of this is news to you?" he asked.

"Quite a lot, actually," she said. "I've heard rumors about Zola. He had his fingers in just about every pie in SHIELD. I never trusted him, but the man was undeniably brilliant. He continued working right up to the day he died, and then there were all sorts of stories that he'd somehow substituted another body for his own and run off with all our secrets."

"Do you believe it?" asked Steve. He made a mental note – another thing she hadn't told him.

Peggy had to think about that for a lot longer than Steve expected. "I don't know," she admitted finally. "I don't _want_ to. It doesn't seem possible. I was there for his autopsy and he seemed very dead indeed, absolutely riddled with cancer... and before you ask," she added, holding up a finger, "it was most definitely _him_. We matched up his dental x-rays and a number of previous surgeries. There's no way he could have found a stand-in so perfect. Not even a clone would have done."

The fact that she'd apparently considered that was worrying. "You still don't sound sure," Steve observed.

"Well, we're talking about _time travel_ ," Peggy reminded him. "That widens the possibilities somewhat."

She had a point. "We need to check this out," Steve said firmly.

"We do," she said. "Yanranay, though... I can't send a team into that area. That wouldn't go over well with the Soviet government. Not at all."

"We went into Dvenadstat," Steve said.

"That was a calculated risk. Our intelligence suggested that everybody else in the area was too busy getting _out_ to worry about anybody coming _in_." Peggy shook her head. "And that was in the Ukraine, which is not nearly so secure. Siberia will be different. That's where their most top-secret projects go on and they monitor the airspace very carefully. A couple of years ago they actually shot down a passenger plane that went off-course over Sakhalin."

"They did _what_?" Steve asked, aghast. How had something like that happen _without_ starting a war?

But Peggy didn't seem to consider it important enough to revisit. "If we go by air or sea, we'll be less likely to be seen than by land, but the logistics of getting there become far more challenging. Besides..." she frowned as she thought about it. "If what Fyodorova told us back in April is true, the Soviets have known about HYDRA's survival much longer than we have, and have been working against them. They'll want to know about this just as much as we do, if they aren't already looking at it."

"I thought you didn't trust Fyodorova," said Steve.

"I thought _you_ did," said Peggy. "I'm going to talk to Vasily Lisitsyn."

"One of your spies?" Steve guessed.

"Not at all. He was the head of the KGB in the early 60's," Peggy explained. "The two of us had to keep the Cuban Missile Crisis from ending with a bang and that sort of thing does tend to forge a personal bond. He's still got a lot of pull within the Soviet government. If he drops the tip, they'll listen to him."

"You trust him, but not Fyodorova?" asked Steve.

"No," said Peggy. "I don't trust him, but if I have to choose between the two, Lisitsyn at least was brought up by parents who loved him. The Black Widows are raised by trainers who don't teach them anything but how to kill." She scowled. "Of course, he's going to want to know where _we_ found out about this."

Steve was starting to feel as if she were deliberately toying with him. "What are you going to tell him?"

"The truth," she replied. "What he does with it after is his concern."

Meaning that if this Lisitsyn asked, Peggy would tell him about Fyodorova – and if he demanded the woman's return, she would comply. "Of course," said Steve, just a little bit bitter. "Good international relations are _important_. What about Natalia?"

Peggy hesitated again. "I don't know," she said, and glanced at the little television screen. Fyodorova had Natalia in her lap and was singing a song with her, but they must know they were being watched. God, Steve thought, it was so much easier just to take people at their word. How did Peggy stay sane, living in a world where she trusted nobody?

"Well, I _do_ know," Steve said. He'd come to at least one firm decision – he'd promised Fyodorova that nothing was going to happen to Natalia, and that was a promise he intended to keep. He was not going to share Peggy's absurd paranoia about a toddler. Without saying anything more, he turned and went back into the interrogation room.

The two Russians looked up. Natalia put her arms around her surrogate mother's neck, afraid of being taken away again.

"Well?" asked Fyodorova.

Steve passed on what Peggy had said. "She's going to talk to Lisitsyn and let him get somebody on it. I don't know if she expects him to share what he learns, but I guess she figures we can work together against HYDRA."

"We managed it before," said Fyodorova. "Sort of."

"But if he wants to know who told her, she's going to say it was you," Steve warned.

"He'll say he's never heard of me," Fyodorova replied.

"Then he can't demand that we send you back to Russia," Steve said. That was a relief – he'd really thought Peggy might deport her just for spite's sake. "Just in case, though, let me take Natalia home. I promise you, she'll be safe with me. Scout's honour," he added with a mock-salute, trying to lighten the mood.

"You were too sick to join the boy scouts," Fyodorova said, but she did smile a little. Then she sobered again as she looked at Natalia in her lap. "I'd rather give her to you than to Carter," she decided, and moved her neck slightly, indicating he should come closer. "Come here."

Steve leaned in to listen, and Natalia grabbed his collar and pulled him right down so his head was immediately beside Fyodorova's. He had to grab the edge of the table to keep from falling on top of them. Maybe Peggy was right about this kid – she might be tiny, but she had an iron grip.

"If you hurt her," Fyodorova whispered in his ear, "or lock her up, I will find you, and I will _kill_ you. There is nowhere in the world you can hide from me if I'm angry with you, and you will _not_ live to regret it. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Ma'am," said Steve. He believed her.

Fyodorova nodded curtly. " _Otpusti yego, Solnyshka_ ," she ordered, and Natalia released him.

Steve walked out of the room again a moment later, with Natalia in his arms. A couple of agents moved as if to take her from him, but he widened his stance and glared at them, and they stopped. They looked at Peggy for guidance.

She pursed her lips. "Are you sure this is a good idea, Steve?" she asked.

"No," he said. "But it's the best idea I've got right now."

"All right," Peggy sighed. "At least I know you won't go running off to Siberia alone if you've got a toddler in tow." She paused and looked him over, as if not entirely sure she believed that. "But _please_ continue to stay at SHIELD. The Winter Soldier is probably still looking for you," she reminded him. "If you go back to your place, you'll be in danger, and so will the child."

This was a game, Steve thought. She was trying to force him to agree with her through emotional blackmail. He wanted to rebel, to tell her to shove her hospitality back where it came from and return to his apartment... but he couldn't, because she was right. "Don't worry," he said. "My stuff's already here, anyway. Is Tony back yet?"

"I didn't know we were expecting him," said Peggy. "Let me check."

A call to the front security desk confirmed that Tony had not been to SHIELD that afternoon. It was only about five, but it was already dark out. If the kid were still at the library, Steve didn't want him leaving alone. "I'm gonna go to the university and pick him up," he decided.

"No." Peggy reached for his arm. "Let me send somebody else."

But Steve still wanted to push back at her, and this was an opportunity. "Tony's worried about Stane tracking him down again," he said. "He probably won't go with anybody but me. I'll go and find him, and then I'll come back here and stay." He would take Natalia with him, too – he didn't trust Peggy not to lock her up again the moment his back was turned.

Peggy gave in. "All right," she said, "but take a SHIELD car. I'll assign you some bodyguards."

Steve stiffened.

" _Please_ ," she said.

She just wanted him to be safe, he reminded himself. "Fine, but I drive," he said.

"Deal." She offered a hand. She wanted to shake on it. Steve rearranged his hold on the little girl, and shook.

* * *

The drive uptown to the university campus took about twenty-five minutes. Natalia sat very quietly in the passenger's seat beside Steve, while the bodyguards loomed behind them. The two men looked uncomfortable with the situation, as if unsure if they were guards or just passengers. Steve pointedly ignored them.

"How old are you?" he asked the little girl.

She looked up at him, but didn't answer.

" _Skol'ko tebe let?_ " he tried in Russian, hoping it was right.

Natalia solemnly held up three fingers.

"You're three," said Steve. "I'm... I'm sixty-eight," he said. It was still a weird thing to think about. He'd been sleeping in the ice almost twice as long as he'd been awake and alive. That was a bit of perspective he could have done without.

Winter break was fast approaching, and the university had decorated for the holidays. The trees down both sides of University Walk were covered in fairy lights, and the lawns and sundial bore a carpet of snow. A sign in front of the library's main doors, with a plastic holly wreak fastened to it with packing tape, proclaimed that the building was open twenty-four hours until the end of the exam period. Steve parked outside the gates and took Natalia with him when he went inside to find Tony. They hadn't arranged a place to meet, but Steve knew what Tony had been there to find.

"Scientific journals?" he asked the woman at the front desk. "Specifically physics?"

She nodded. "Any particular publication?"

"No. I'm looking for a friend who's doing some research," Steve explained.

She gave him directions to the third floor, and he headed up. In a little reading room full of bound volumes of journals, students were sitting with their styrofoam cups of coffee and studying with an air of semi-desperation. They took no notice of Steve as he passed – many of them were so intent upon their material that they were probably not even aware of him. Other were actually asleep, face-down in their textbooks.

The only person in the room who looked relaxed was Tony. He was sitting in a corner, leaning on a heater as he stared out the window across the campus grounds.

"Tony?" Steve asked softly.

Tony looked up with a start, but sat back again when he said Steve. "Oh, hi," he said. He had a stack of notes and photocopies sitting on the heater next to him, but he wasn't using them. Possibly this was because the black dinosaur bird was curled on top of the pile with its head under one wing, asleep.

"You've definitely made a friend," Steve observed.

"Her name is Crusoe," Tony said.

"Crusoe?" asked Steve.

"She's a castaway," Tony explained. "You found the spies, huh?" He was now looking at Natalia, who was standing on her toes to watch, fascinated, as the bird's little chest rose and fell with each breath.

"Yes, I did," Steve said. "You two are gonna stay at SHIELD with me. Peggy's promised to keep us all safe – from _everybody_ who is currently looking for us, including Stane. He told the police I kidnapped you."

Tony rolled his eyes. "He would," he said, and began picking up his things. He lifted the stack of papers in both hands, careful not to let the bird slide off. Crusoe. Steve could vaguely remember his mother reading _Robinson Crusoe_ to him when he was little, a little bit of a chapter every night for nearly a year. He didn't recall any specifics of the story, only the broad outlines, but he supposed this small dinosaur was about as much of a castaway as it was possible to be.

"Did you find what _you_ needed?" Steve asked.

"I hope so," Tony said, and Steve supposed that under the circumstances, that was all _either_ of them could say.

* * *

Upon arriving back a the car, they realized Tony was going to have to ride in back, in between the bodyguards. He didn't like the idea very much, and neither did Crusoe, who woke up and burrowed under Tony's jacket to hide from them. Steve hoped she didn't have fleas.

With everybody buckled in, they headed back downtown under a cloud of uncomfortable quiet. Steve had planned to use this time to ask Tony about his findings and maybe talk over a few other things, but that wasn't going to work very well with the two hulking SHIELD bodyguards there to listen to the whole thing. Steve wasn't good at awkward silences, though, so after a few awful, dragging minutes, he decided to just pretend they weren't there.

"Have you ever been to Coney Island?" he asked.

There was no reply at first, and then the agent on the left ventured, "who? Me?"

"No, not you!" said Steve. " _Tony_. Have you ever been to Coney Island?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Of course I've been to Coney Island," he said. "I took Rhodey and the gang when they visited here a couple of summers ago."

That would have made Tony about fourteen. Steve had to wonder if that were the _first_ time he'd ever been to the amusement park. Howard and Maria didn't come across as the type of parents who took their son places. "Bucky and I had a bet on," he said. "The first time he ever made me ride the Cyclone, before I had the super-soldier serum, I got sick. We were gonna go ride it again when the war was over to see if it still happened."

"So you want me to take you to Coney Island to see if you throw up on me?" asked Tony.

"I'll try not to throw up _on_ you," Steve replied with a grin. "Bucky wasn't so fortunate. I think you and Bucky would have liked each other," he added. "He would have thought going into space was a great time, too."

Tony had been snickering a moment ago – now his smile evaporated. "Is _that_ why you hang out with me?" he asked, sounding as if it were at once a revelation and a disappointment. "Because I remind you of your friend?"

"No!" said Steve. "That's not what I meant at all!" What was he supposed to say that wouldn't make this even worse? "Do you always suspect people of having ulterior motives for being your friends?"

"Mostly," Tony said, and Steve realized: Tony was the scion of one of the richest self-made men in the country. He'd probably never had friends who didn't at least start _off_ with an eye on getting something from him. No wonder he figured he was only welcome for his brain. How could Steve explain to him, without sounding corny, that all he actually wanted was companionship from the one person he was sure was _not_ a spy?

"If you two are gonna talk about your _feelings_ ," one of the bodyguards asked plaintively, "can you do it when we're not here?"

"Yeah, this is kind of awkward," the other agreed.

"We didn't ask you to come," Steve told them.

"Well, we didn't volunteer, either," the first one said.

"No problem," Tony said. "We'll shut up."

"Yeah," grumbled Steve. "Wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable."

The silence for the rest of the trip was even _worse_.

* * *

Back at the SHIELD building, Steve led the two young people into the quarters assigned to him. Tony didn't even really look at the place. He put his stuff down on the desk, fished Crusoe out of his jacket before tossing it onto the sofa, and sat down to get back to work. Natalia, however, hung back in the doorway.

" _Bol'shoy_!" she said, eyes wide.

"Yeah, it is big, isn't it?" asked Steve with a smile. He scooped her up to carry her inside.

"It's not big," Tony said. "It's barely the size of your apartment!"

"That's big enough for me," said Steve – and if Natalia and Fyodorova had been living in that empty apartment for two weeks, this place must look like a palace to the girl. He wondered if he should be surprised that Natalia hadn't screamed or struggled yet, or asked where her _Konyshka_ was. Maybe she thought she'd be thrown back in a cell if she did. Or maybe it was because Fyodorova herself had assured Natalia that Steve was okay. That must have been a big risk, when Fyodorova clearly didn't fully trust Steve anymore, herself. She must have felt she had no choice, and the thought just made Steve determined, all over again, that he would not give her any reason to regret it.

"Are you hungry?" he asked Tony. "There's a room service menu here somewhere." He shuffled through the things on the coffee table – under a couple of magazines and today's _Bugle_ was the laminated card. "Here we go. What do you want to eat?"

"Have they got pizza?" asked Tony.

Steve looked. "No," he said. Probably a good thing. Pizza was what Tony had requested last time, and Steve suspected he ate far too much of it.

"How about a tuna melt?" Tony tried.

Tuna melts were available – Steve ordered one for Tony, meat loaf and mashed potatoes for himself, and a little dish of pirogi for Natalia, as he figured she would appreciate something that reminded her of home. She did seem to enjoy them when they arrived. Steve cut each one in half for her, and she stabbed them awkwardly with her fork and then stuffed the entire piece in her mouth at once. It was as if she were afraid somebody would come and take them away again.

"Did you make any progress on the idea of a time tesseract?" asked Steve.

"A little," Tony said with a shrug. He would have eaten at the desk with his notes in front of him, but Steve had insisted he join them at the table. Crusoe was perched on the back of the empty fourth chair, and Tony held out a bit of tuna on his finger for her. "Time is different from space, though, and the two don't correspond exactly. If something like that exists I'd need to see it and play with it, like Dad did with the tesseract cells from HYDRA, before I knew what it might be capable of. There's values I'd need to _measure_. You can't derive them from first principles."

Steve nodded. "Well, we have an idea now that might not be what we're looking for anyway," he said. "You got any other ideas about time travel? Because we're starting to think HYDRA may have a few."

"Oh?" Tony's face lit up, and he leaned forward eagerly. "I do, actually! That's something I've been thinking about for _years_!"

"Really?" Steve asked, startled.

"Yeah, I read H. G. Wells' _The Time Machine_ when I was five and tried to build my first time machine a couple of days later." Tony grinned. "It was just a bunch of parts I put together... I didn't think about what any of it was going to _do_. Dad got a bit annoyed about it," he remembered. "He said no kid of his could go around thinking you just made piles of junk and called it an invention. Mom told him to lay off because I was just playing." He took a bite of his sandwich. "But I figured, he was probably right..."

"Don't talk with your mouth full," said Steve. "You're setting a bad example for Natalia."

Tony rolled his eyes, but he chewed and swallowed. "So I started thinking about it _seriously_ after that, but at the time I didn't know enough about... uh... well, _time_. I've fiddled with it on and off since then but I could never come up with anything that would work and I could actually _build_ , and then there's the question of paradoxes and all that stuff."

"Well, somebody must have done it," Steve said. "What were you missing that would keep you from building it?"

"Mostly power," said Tony. "Going back in time basically means rearranging the entire universe, or at least a significant part of it, atom by atom. You'd need the entire output of the sun for a year."

Steve thought about that. "Howard believed the tesseract represented a source of unlimited power. We know HYDRA was extracting energy from it during the war. If they had some of that _left_ , stashed somewhere, they could be using it now to power the equipment that's pulling more of it out of the past." He realized he had not yet told Tony what they'd heard from Fyodorova. "Apparently HYDRA's got a base up in the arctic somewhere that's using tesseract energy for something big. We think they might be getting it out of other times."

"Well, yeah," Tony said, completely unsurprised. "Time distortion in places we know the thing was, that's the obvious answer."

"The question is," Steve went on, "what are they storing it up _for_? What are they gonna try to do once they've got enough of it?"

"Maybe a bigger time travel project," Tony suggested. Crusoe chirped, and he pulled another bit of tuna out of his sandwich to offer her. "Maybe they want to get something bigger out of the past, or the future. Or send themselves back in time to try to change the outcome of the war or something."

Any of those were possibilities based on the information they had. "Maybe... maybe that's why the rumors that Zola's still alive," said Steve. "Maybe they got _him_ out of the past to begin with. He could have invented this thing but died before it could be built, so they built it and then went back and got him. We won't know until we look."

"So what are we waiting for?" Tony asked. "Why are we sitting here eating sandwiches instead of on our way to Russia?"

"Because Peggy's worried about politics," said Steve. "She's got some guy in the KGB working on it."

"And... we're just supposed to wait and trust them to share the answers?" said Tony.

"Apparently," Steve said. The only thing he hated more than being baby-sat was being kept out of the action. Now here both were happening at once.

They were almost finished the meal when there was a buzz at the door. Steve told the kids to stay put and got up to look through the peephole. He was afraid he'd find Peggy there, but instead it was Nick Fury, with a case of beer in one hand. Steve opened the door, and Fury held the drinks up and smiled.

"Thought you could use some company," he said.

Steve glanced back over his shoulder, and Fury followed his gaze and saw Tony and Natalia. He lowered the box again.

"Looks like you've already got some," he said.

"Yeah, my company-having schedules is pretty full," Steve said. He stepped out into the hall and shut the door, so the two men could talk. "Did Peggy say anything to you about what happened today?"

"Yeah, actually," Fury said, and reached into his box of beer to pull out a brown paper envelope he'd hidden between the bottles. "She asked me to give you this, and to say she's sorry she can't tell you herself, but she's busy making arrangements to move the tesseract if it turns out she has to. She's still not sure."

It was no wonder everybody seemed to be worried about ulterior motives, Steve thought – everybody around him seemed to _have_ one. Did Fury actually _want_ to hang out with Steve, or was he merely Peggy's messenger? Did he even _like_ Steve, or was he pretending to, on orders? Steve did not dare ask.

When he opened the envelope, he found a typewritten transcript of a conversation between Peggy and her friend, if that were the appropriate word, in the USSR. Paging through it, Steve found that it _began_ with Peggy delivering the news of Fyodorova's capture, as if she couldn't wait to get rid of her. Lisitsyn replied that he had never heard of Konstantina Fyodorova unless she meant the football player, but if Madame Director had a message for him, he was willing to listen.

Fury stood aside, assuming the contents of the message were not for his eyes, while Steve read the rest of it – but Steve doubted there was anything in there Fury didn't already know about. He certainly seemed to know more about all this than _Steve_ did. "They're sending a submarine to go check out the area north of Yanranay," Steve said, folding the pages back up. "I have a hard time believing she trusts the Russians to look into this."

"She doesn't trust her own shadow," said Fury. "Don't worry, she'll make sure at least one of our people is on that sub. More likely two or three. Madame Director always covers her bases."

"Yeah. This way she gets answers _and_ she keeps me here where she can keep an eye on me," said Steve. It was more than _slightly_ bitter now.

"It's not that she doesn't trust you," said Fury. "She's just afraid you'll run off and do something nuts again – like stealing a space shuttle, for example." He squeezed Steve's shoulder. "You're starting to take all this pretty personally, Rogers, and she knows what you get like when you're taking things personally. It's not about trust."

"No, it's _all_ about trust," said Steve, shrugging Fury's hand off. "This is the guy who killed Howard. He almost killed Eva. How am I _not_ supposed to take that personally?"

"Because this isn't about the Winter soldier," said Fury. "You've got that on your mind, which means you're not thinking about what this is really about. This is about what's happening in Yanranay, remember?"

"Did she tell you to tell me that, too?" asked Steve.

"Maybe," Fury said. "Maybe I agree with her. That's why she's in charge – because she knows more about what's going on than any of us do."

"Yeah, and she keeps it that way," grumbled Steve. "Take your beers home. I gotta look out for these kids." For all he knew, Fury might be glad he wouldn't have to spend the evening putting up with Steve.

"You really want to keep them with you?" asked Fury. "You're the guy with a Soviet assassin looking for him."

"Oh, but this isn't about the Winter Soldier, is it?" Steve snapped. "I'll keep them. I have to protect them from the people who are supposed to be protecting them from _me_."

* * *

That evening Tony sat up working – again – while Natalia slept curled in the middle of the bed. The big mattress seemed all the larger around her tiny frame. There was plenty of room left for Steve, but he chose the sofa instead.

At around two in the morning, with Tony finally nodded off and snoring with Crusoe sleeping next to his head, Steve got up and went to the window. He opened the blinds and stood there for several minutes, staring up at the buildings all around them. His eyes scanned the jagged line where the tops of the towers met the overcast sky, lit dull orange from below by the city. Somewhere among those roofs, there might be the crouched shape of a sniper sitting in the snow.

If there were, he would easily be able to see Steve standing in the window, silhouetted by the light from Tony's desk lamp. He could line up his shot and fire, then slip away before anybody else saw him. Why didn't he?

Steve had been out and about for the past few days. He'd gone to Garden City, then to Washington, and then had come back. He'd dropped off Tony at the university, found Fyodorova, questioned her, and picked Tony up again. There must have been a dozen, a hundred opportunities for the Winter Soldier to take him down. This man wasn't afraid of shooting him down in Central Park with Eva Natter's entire staff and photo crew all around him, so why hadn't he turned up again? The kind of empty mind Fyodorova had described... what came between that and a target? Where was he, out there in the snow and the artificial glow?

There was no answer. No shot was taken that night, either, and eventually Steve had to close the blinds again and go back to bed.


	13. Chapter 13: A Mission at Last

The next several days were not pleasant ones. Tony mostly spent them working. Having learned that Stane had the police looking for him, he did not go out again. Instead, Peggy gave him permission to send SHIELD personnel on errands for him. They came back with books and magazines and stacks of photocopies, and boxes of popsicle sticks and card stock that Tony used to start building models again – but where the models in his room have been of identifiable machines, buildings, and armor, these were complicated geometric shapes that didn't seem to represent any sort of real-world object.

Whatever they were, Tony seemed unsatisfied with most of them. Not a few ended up in the wastebasket by the desk, where they would be dug out and played with by Natalia. Steve had worried that the little girl would be bored and frustrated, cooped up in here, but she seemed content to amuse herself by making toys out of whatever was on hand. She would stack up Tony's reactions only for Crusoe to knock the resulting towers down by brushing against them, but this seemed to delight rather than upset Natalia. She would squeal and clap her hands, and then do it all over again.

Steve had no such easy entertainment. He paced up and down the room like a caged bear, constantly peering out the window for signs of lurking assassins, until Tony finally asked him to stop.

"It's distracting," Tony complained. "I feel like you're going to explode in a minute."

"Sorry." Steve paused and looked out the window again, then shook his head and grabbed a bag. "Do you two think you can look after each other for a couple of hours?" If Tony were responsible enough to watch Hope Pym overnight, he could probably deal with Natalia.

"Sure," said Tony.

"Great." Steve unzipped the bag and began throwing things in. "I'll be on the fourth-floor gym if you need me."

He didn't so much want to work out as he did to burn off his excess energy, so that was what Steve did. He lifted weights, which did not involve any particular effort on his part, but the repetitive motion was soothing. He ran laps. He hung up a punching bag, only to put his fist right through it – and he was standing there, with his hand still out and rice spilling onto his feet, when Fury approached him.

"You look like you need some sleep," the other man observed.

"I slept for forty years. I think I've had my fill," said Steve. He looked at the mess, then sighed and took the bag down off its hook. "Anything else terrible happen recently?"

"We don't know yet," said Fury. "Madame Director's friends in the KGB haven't gotten back to her."

Steve rolled up the remains of the punching bag and tossed it in a garbage can, then went to start sweeping the rice up into a pile with his bare hands. All around him in the brightly-lit space were other people in bright-coloured workout clothes, but they were all studiously ignoring him, focusing on whatever they were doing. An angry Captain America was something not to be unnecessarily provoked. Was that what people thought of him since his arrest at the museum? That he was just some kind of anger time bomb?

"She wants to talk to you," Fury added.

"Haven't I been lying low enough for her?" Steve asked bitterly.

"Yes, you have," said Fury. "I think that's why. She's worried about you."

"Worried about what I might do, you mean." Steve scooped up a handful of rice and realized he had nowhere to put it. Fury found one of the plastic tubs that people put their street shoes in for the lockers, and offered him that. Steve dumped the rice into it. "Why does she always send _you_? Why doesn't she come see me herself?"

"Usually because she figures you're less angry with me than with her," said Fury.

Steve scowled. "Tell her I'm coming." He gathered up another handful of rice.

"Leave this for somebody else." Fury put the tub down and squeezed Steve's shoulder, but the muscles there were tight and his fingers found almost no purchase. "I mean it, man, you look exhausted. When you get a chance, you really ought to take a nap. Chamomile tea works wonders."

Steve blinked and looked up at him. "Chamomile tea?"

"My grandmother's panacea," said Fury. "Not very manly, but damn if it doesn't do the job. Alex gives me shit about it. Nicky and his flower tea."

That made Steve chuckle a bit as he straightened up. "I haven't seen Pearce for a few days," he observed.

"You haven't seen _anybody_ for a few days," said Fury, "but neither have I. He comes and goes. We all do."

"Yeah." That was true enough in a place like this. Steve hadn't seen the Pyms since the _Achilles_ , either. People came and went, and sometimes even their closest friends never knew why.

Steve took a shower and changed his sweaty clothes before he went to see Peggy. He came out of the bathroom to find the two kids more or less where he'd left them – Tony had built some kind of flexible shape out of toothpicks and bag ties and was turning it thoughtfully inside-out. Natalia was sitting on the floor creating an obstacle course for Crusoe with the rejected objects, which the bird preferred to knock over rather than find a path through.

"What's that?" Steve asked Tony.

"A woefully inadequate three-dimensional representation of a six-dimensional Calabi-Yao manifold," Tony replied. He looked up from it at Steve. "It's a possible model for the submicroscopic structure of space-time. In order to access the past in any meaningful sense, you'd have to create something to unfold this – but do that, and you risk resetting it to the inflationary phase at the beginning of the universe and ending up with a pocket of space expanding out of control. Which is a problem _they_ obviously managed to solve, since the Earth hasn't blown up yet," he added in a deadpan.

"That seems like pretty good evidence," Steve agreed. "Bring that along to show Peggy. She'll probably want to know what you've learned."

Tony nodded and folded the shape down to a flat rectangle he could wrap a rubber band around, then began gathering up papers to put in a binder. It occurred to Steve to wonder what kind of messages he had on his answering machine _now_ , after several days of Tony being missing again. Desperate ones from Maria? Furious ones from Stane? Had the police called? Had Herr Baumhauer?

Tony combed his hair and put on a clean shirt, and they couldn't leave Natalia and Crusoe unsupervised so they brought them along. The four of them must have made for a strange entourage as they headed down to Peggy's office, but nobody asked questions. The people in the halls and elevator, like the ones in the gym, kept their heads down and politely avoided staring. If _Captain America_ were hanging out with two kids and a very small dinosaur, he must have a reason.

When they arrived in Peggy's office, they found Fury already there – along with the reappeared Agent Pearce, Hank Pym, and several others. Peggy looked worried. She usually did these days, but there was something more to it now. The shadows under her eyes seemed darker, the lines around her mouth deeper. She was surprised to see Tony and Natalia, but for some reason, she didn't challenge Steve about it. Maybe she thought he was about to explode, too.

"How's Janet?" was the first thing Steve asked. Her husband was present, but she was not.

"She's at home with Hope," said Hank. "She's doing much better."

"Steve," said Peggy. "We have a bit of a situation."

The delicacy of her tone was completely normal, but it made Steve's hackles rise. After spending most of the week stuck in one room he was _not_ going to dance around the point if they'd finally come to it. "We've had a _situation_ for the past month and a half," he said. "Are we going to _do_ anything about it this time?"

"I think we finally can," Peggy said. She looked at Pearce.

He cleared his throat. "We still don't know what the Soviets found at Yanranay," he said, obviously uncomfortable, "but Yanranay is no longer the problem."

Fury began spreading out a set of spy satellite photographs, showing the ice-choked Arctic ocean from above. Red symbols and arrows were drawn on them, to represent vessels moving around.

"They needed a craft that could navigate the sea ice quickly, so they sent the _Ilya Murometz_. She's a nuclear submarine that can spend years at sea without refueling and stay submerged for months at a time. Much quicker and less exposed than an icebreaker, and it happened to be in port at Severodvinsk when Madame Director's message arrived."

Something sank inside Steve. "It's missing," he guessed. It figured – whether the Russians were going to cooperate with them or not didn't matter anymore.

"Sonograms from the USS _Puerto Rico_ show it lying on the bottom of the East Siberian Sea," Fury confirmed, pulling out one of the photographs. "It's in less than seventy feet of water, making it relatively accessible, and as far as we know the Soviets don't have another vessel capable of getting to it quickly. Their other subs are thousands of miles away. And here's the thing," he added.

A buzz of electricity seemed to run over Steve's skin as he had a _second_ revelation. The future, or at least the next several days of it, was suddenly very clear. "It's in international waters!"

"Yes," said Peggy, stepping forward at last. "As Agent Pearce explained, the _Ilya Murometz_ is powered by a nuclear reactor. I just got off the phone with Vasily in Moscow. This is strictly off the books, because as far as anyone's allowed to know, the sub is still docked for refitting in Severodvinsk. But there may be survivors still on board, and somebody has to retrieve the nuclear fuel. The Russians don't have the equipment to do that. We have unofficial permission to go in, but if we're observed, we cannot appeal to Vasily or anyone else in the KGB for help."

"Sounds like a trap," said Steve.

"It always does," Peggy replied, not concerned. "But this is how these things have to be done. Whatever happened to the submarine almost certainly has to do with the fate of the _Achilles_ and the volcano in Norway. Fury and Pym have already agreed to go," she told Steve. "I want you to take charge."

The arctic ocean. The image that immediately appeared in front of Steve's eyes was watching the _Achilles_ collapse, followed by the memory of the water roaring in through the broken windshield of the _Valkyrie_. Snow and ice and raging water, and the bone-gnawing, brain-numbing _cold_ that had sucked the life out of him even as he'd realized he _did_ want to live. The arctic was the last place on Earth Steve wanted to go back to, and yet if that were where HYDRA was, it was where he had to be.

It also might very well be where the Winter Soldier was.

So Steve nodded. "Can I request personnel?" he asked.

Peggy tensed. She knew this was going to be a test. "Yes."

"I want Fyodorova," Steve said.

"Absolutely bloody not!" Peggy snapped.

"She's been there before," Steve pointed out. "She'll recognize the signs she described, like the blue aurora. She knows the land – she survived a month in the arctic with a toddler, remember? And she speaks Russian a hell of a lot better than I do."

Pearce stood up. "Last time you took _her_ along on a mission, she killed the survivors you were there to rescue!"

"She was following orders," said Steve. "This time she knows that if she betrays us, we can turn her over to the Soviets, and I think she's more scared of them than she is of us. If Natalia stays here..." he realized he didn't know where the little girl was and looked around for her – he found her sitting quietly in a chair, drinking a cup of water somebody had given her. "If Natalia stays here, Fyodorova will do everything in her power to cooperate so she can come back to her."

"That woman doesn't have a mothering bone in her body!" Pearce protested.

"Oh, had you two discussed children, Alex?" asked Peggy, voice heavy with dry British sarcasm.

Pearce scowled, but said no more.

"She might not even agree to go," Steve said, "but I want to at least talk to her about it."

"Fine," sighed Peggy. "Invite her." Perhaps she saw an opportunity to get rid of their prisoner. Perhaps she had decided that if Steve wanted to be betrayed and shot, that was his own business.

"I should come along, too, if there's any change of finding out what they've been using to manipulate time," Tony announced. He stood up as straight as he could and hooked his thumbs in his pockets – Steve recognized that posture at once. "I've been doing research on the topic and if we can figure out more about it, I may be able to come up with something to reverse the process, or shield an area from the effects. Besides, I'm the nearest thing you've got to an expert on the tesseract."

"When did you become an _expert_?" asked Pearce, still annoyed.

"Last night," Tony replied nonchalantly, as if he'd worked it all out in a few hours instead of the long days and nights Steve had watched. Steve thought of objecting, since Tony was after all only a kid... but after taking him into _space_ , it would be hypocritical of Steve to say no _now_. And he had a point – he might know something useful.

"Very well," said Peggy. "Anything _else_?"

"One more thing." Steve held up a finger. "I want to know, in advance, everything that's happened in the area where the _Ilya Murometz_ was last seen. Especially anything that might involve the tesseract. Even if it sounds like just folklore." Fyodorova's experience had warned them against dismissing that.

"I've already thought of that," said Peggy. "I've got people looking into it right now."

"Great," Steve nodded. Maybe she hadn't told him about the _Achilles_ because she really _hadn't_ known. If she were on top of it this time, it made that idea much more believable. And if not... well, maybe she was at least _learning_. "Where's Fyodorova?"

"I'll take you to her," Peggy said. "Bring the team."

* * *

The lockups were down in the very bottom of the New York SHIELD building. They were a set of bare little cells, each containing a cot and a small metal toilet. They were clearly not intended to hold people for longer than a few hours. Fyodorova was in one of these, handcuffed to the bed.

" _Konyshka_!" Natalia squirmed out of Steve's arms and hit the floor running. Fyodorova stood, but the cuffs wouldn't allow her to reach the bars. She held out one of her hands, and Natalia reached through and took it.

" _Yavlyayutsya li oni byt' dobry k vam, Solnyshka_?" asked Fyodorova. _Are they being kind to you, Sunshine?_

" _Da!_ _Tony pozvol'te mne igrat' so svoimi igrushkami!_ " Natalia replied, delighted. She didn't seem to notice Fyodorova's chains at all. " _On imeyet chernuyu ptitsu, kotoraya lyubit, chtoby podnyat'sya._ "

In some part of Steve's brain it registered that the little girl was telling Fyodorova she'd been allowed to play with Tony's toys, and she must be describing Crusoe, too, because _chernuyu ptitsu_ was the accusative form of _black bird_. He didn't pay much attention to that, though, because he couldn't take his eyes off the shackles holding Fyodorova to the bedstead. The chain was just long enough to let her use the toilet, but only _just_. He turned to Peggy, furious, and silently demanded an explanation.

Peggy didn't even flinch. "They're handcuffed to their beds from childhood," she said. "They find it comforting.

"We do, actually," Fyodorova agreed. "If they don't cuff you do the bed at night, it's because they're worried they might have to up stakes and move before morning. It's hard to sleep when you know there's a possibility the building will burn down or somebody will drop a bomb on you."

Steve stared at her, then looked back at Peggy. Neither of them seemed to be joking.

"You want to get out of here?" he asked Fyodorova.

"Of course I do," she replied. Steve saw her eyes move as she looked away from him, at Peggy. "What's the catch?"

"The Soviets lost a nuclear submarine north of where you reported the abandoned town," said Peggy. "Steve wants you along to investigate."

Steve expected Fyodorova's first question to be about her own safety – she, like the rest of them, had every right to suspect this was a trap. Instead, however, she asked, "if Rogers and I are going to Siberia, what's going to happen to Natalia?"

"A friend of mine will take her," said Peggy. "Janet has a little girl of her own. Hope is seven."

"All right," said Fyodorova. "I'm in."

"Really?" asked Steve. He'd thought she would be more suspicious.

"You asked me if I want out of his cell," Fyodorova said. "I do. And I trust Janet Pym with children. When do we leave?"

Peggy nodded, and one of the guards stepped up to punch a code into the electronic lock.

"Right now," Peggy said. "We'll get you some winter gear, and then you leave immediately. The _Ilya Murometz_ went down only hours ago. The quicker we get there, the more likely we are to find survivors." She went inside to undo the handcuffs, but Fyodorova was already on her feet, scooping up Natalia as the door opened. With a smile on her face, she handed the open cuffs to Peggy, who said nothing and slipped the key back into her blazer pocket.

The group started back towards the elevators. Fyodorova held her head high and stiff, her eyes darting back and forth as she took in everything around her, and Steve wondered if she was going to try to escape. She didn't, though – instead, she followed them upstairs, where a man handed her some clean clothes. Fyodorova thanked him, and started changing right there in the requisition room.

Steve politely turned his back. Peggy, however, watched openly, her arms folded and her stance wide. She wanted Fyodorova to know that even if she _wanted_ to, there was no chance of escape.

"So do they teach you Russian spy girls the art of seduction?" asked Tony.

"Yes," Fyodorova replied, pulling a sweatshirt over her head. "Are you looking for a teacher? Because lesson number one is that lines like that only make you look like a fool."

"Maybe you can give me a demonstration, then," Tony said. Peggy poked him and drew a circle in the air with her finger, directing him to turn around.

"I've committed murder, theft, and espionage, but I'm afraid statutory rape is not in my contract," said Fyodorova. "Besides, how do you know I never slept with your father?"

Tony fell silent.

Peggy had apparently meant what she'd said about leaving Natalia with Janet, and it seemed she intended to demonstrate it. Janet herself was waiting for them in the parking garage, with Hope at her side. She'd cut her hair and walked as if in a bit of pain, but she was smiling as the group arrived to place the little girl in her care.

"Hello, Natalia," said Janet. "It's nice to meet you. This is my daughter, Hope. Maybe you two can be friends."

"Hi, Natalia." Hope reached for the little redhead's hand. After a moment, Natalia tentatively took it, and Hope smiled at her. The Pyms evidently took proposed babysitting duties far more seriously than Tony did.

Hank then kissed his wife's cheek. "I'll see you in a few days," he said.

"You be careful," Janet told him. "Don't get into any trouble without me there to pull you out."

"You just get better." Hank touched her cheek, then ruffled Hope's hair. "Take good care of Mom, Squirt."

"I will," Hope promised.

As they began to walk away, Janet called out: "Captain Rogers! Look after Hank! He's a reckless bastard as well as a grump!"

"Well, he's not gonna learn any better from me!" Steve replied.

Peggy gave Fury a suitcase, and they all piled into a van to take them to the secret airstrip upstate. Inside the case turned out to be the photographs and documents that had been in Peggy's office, which they could now review, and a velvet box that looked like it ought to contain jewelry.

"You'll be the best-placed to gain entry to the submarine," Fury said, giving an envelope to Pym. "Letting the rest of us in might be a challenge."

"I've got a couple of ideas." Tony leaned forward eagerly. "You got any blueprints of the sub?"

Fury passed them over. "They're incomplete," he warned. "We know almost nothing about the forward section, where they keep two ICBMs. And this area here that's not filled in, that's the reactor. We're not sure what's in there, either, but we'll have to learn real quick once we're on board. Especially if the containment's been breached." He glanced up at Steve, then back at Tony and added, "you won't be going back there, Stark. Your mother would have us all killed."

"Yeah, yeah." Tony rolled his eyes and took the blueprint. "We might not know, but we can make some educated guesses."

Fury handed another packet of briefing materials to Steve. He flipped through them briefly, then looked to his right, where Fyodorova was sitting. "Are you going to try to escape?" he asked. She'd seemed to be making an effort to be honest with him earlier. He was curious if she would continue now.

"Where would I escape to?" she wanted to know. "We're going someplace where they want me dead. They'll kill me on sight if they recognize me. I came to you because I wanted your help in finding out what's going on up there. If this is how we do that, then I'm in."

"And what happens after that?"

"Whatever Carter decides to do with me, I guess," said Fyodorova. She didn't sound like she had high hopes.

Steve was quiet for a moment, wondering what he should say. Tony hated platitudes, which had made Steve wary of saying anything that might be considered cliché. He didn't want to alienate Fyodorova the same way. "What do _you_ want?" he asked.

"I want the world to last longer than I will," she replied, without any hesitation. "The way things are, I'm not sure it will. My superiors always told me my job was to protect and serve the glory of the Soviet state, but they're the ones who are letting HYDRA play them against the US. We need to face the real enemy instead of messing around fighting each _other_ , but when I say that, _I'm_ the traitor."

Steve thought back to what she'd said the night she appeared in Tony's room. "I thought you said they wanted you dead because you were too recognizable now."

"There are a lot of reasons why they don't like me," she said. "I'm replaceable. There were twenty-five girls in my class."

"Would any of them agree with you?" asked Steve.

"I don't know," said Fyodorova. "We weren't exactly encouraged to share seditious thoughts. Has Carter mentioned anything about it?"

"No," said Steve. "Only that she doesn't trust any of you."

"I'm sure she doesn't. I could tell her the sky was blue, and she would check."

"That doesn't bother you," Steve observed.

"Of course not," said Fyodorova. "It shouldn't bother you, either. The fact that Peggy Carter doesn't trust anybody is why she'd lasted as long as she has."

* * *

The quickest route by air from New York to the remote part of the Siberian Sea where the _Ilya Murometz_ had vanished was over the pole. They boarded a plane and headed north, passing over the icebound islands of Canada – at one point, Steve looked out the window and realized they were crossing Baffin Bay, where the _Achilles_ had been destroyed. Where the tesseract had come to rest before the _Valkyrie_ itself dived into the water further west.

He quickly turned away. Down there was nothing but darkness and cold water and deep, death-like sleep. He wasn't fast enough, though, to stop the visions: the _Valkyrie_ 's plunge. Bucky's drop from the train into the swirling snow. The _Achilles_ collapsing and taking Hank and Janet with it. He shivered violently, then took a deep breath and forced himself to sit up straight. Peggy didn't know about any of that. She didn't _need_ to know about any of that. She'd given him a job to do, and Fyodorova thought that job was saving the world – for the second time in six months.

Just a normal day for Captain America.

Darkness fell as they mounted the top of the globe, away from the sun. Soon the aurora borealis was dancing all around them. Nobody was studying now, and while Hank had napped through the earlier part of the flight, the whole team was now wide awake and watching silently as the curtains of green light shifted and flickered. Even Fyodorova's face was pressed the the glass. Steve wondered if she were just appreciating the light show or whether she, like him, were looking for traces of blue.

"Scuze me," Tony suddenly said, and got up from his seat to go to the bathroom. He was in there for quite some time, and in fact was still there when Steve felt them start to descend. Fury got up and went to confer with the pilot, then came back a moment later and did up his seat belt.

"Go get Stark," he told Steve.

Steve stood and knocked on the bathroom door. "Tony?" he said. "You okay in there?"

"Yeah," said Tony. "Are we landing?"

"Very soon," Steve said. "You need to come out and be briefed."

"Gimme a minute," Tony replied.

It was a couple of minutes before he returned. He sat down and did up his seat belt, then reached over and pulled the window shutter closed. It was only then that Steve remembered Tony's awful brush with outer space – and the aurora – back in the spring. No wonder he'd gone and hidden.

Fury cleared his throat. "We're gonna be landing on the icebreaker _Sinbad_ ," he said. "It's got a helipad, but that wasn't designed for a vertical landing jet plane, so it'll probably be rough. The jet won't be able to wait for us, either. Once we're on board, we find the _Ilya Murometz_ , assess its condition, rescue survivors, then report back. Madame Director and her buddies in the USSR will figure out who does once back."

Everybody nodded. Colour was coming back into Tony's face at the idea of being part of a secret mission. Why hadn't Steve said _no_ when he had the chance?

"Of course there's the possibility that we'll be caught," said Fury. "Vasily Lisitsyn has promised to keep as many people as possible out of our way, but there's only so much he can do. That's why Madame Director has issued each of us a homing beacon we can activate if things go, as she put it 'pear-shaped'." He took out the velvet box. "They're intended to look like personal items, so hopefully at least one of us will be able to get one past a body search."

Fury took out and put on a pair of dark-rimmed glasses, then passed out the rest of the items. Tony got a gold MIT ring with a red stone. Steve's was an old-fashioned watch, intended to look like something he might have owned during the war. Fyodorova got a pair of pearl earrings, and Hank a woman's ring on a chain, as if it were something Janet had given him to remind him of her.

"To activate them, crush the stone or glass," he said.

"Here's hoping we never have to use them," said Steve, strapping the watch on his wrist.

"Don't hope too high," Fury warned. "The pilot's contacted the captain of the _Sinbad_ , and he says they've got company. Another ship's appeared in the area and it's closing on them. Might be lost seal hunters, but probably not. Buckle up," he added. "We're landing."


	14. Chapter 14: The Sadko and the Sinbad

There were indeed two ships waiting for them in the heaving arctic sea. The smaller one was the boxy, red and white _Sinbad_ with the words _US Coast Guard_ just aft of a diagonal white stripe on its hull – but not far away was a larger, sleeker, black-painted vessel with the letters _САДКО_ on its bow; _Sadko_. Both were flying a blue and yellow kilo flag, signaling that they wanted peaceful communication with one another.

"Could be worse," said Steve as the jet came closer.

"Could be better," Fury muttered.

The _Sinbad_ pitched unhappily as the jet landed on its helipad, and continued bobbing for quite some time as the group disembarked. Steve was the first to get off. The wind was bitter, biting into his exposed cheeks and quickly turning them numb, as his breath crystallize on his scarf. The sky overhead was frozen in twilight, with a dim orange glow on one horizon, and stars glittering, fiercely bright, above the other.

On deck, Steve was greeted by a plump Alaskan woman in a peaked cap and dark blue down jacket. "Captain Nancy Willard!" she introduced herself over the roar of jet engines.

"Captain Steve Rogers!" he replied. "What's up with our guest?"

"They're sending a party over," she said. "We were told you'd have a story prepared?"

"We do," Steve said, and looked at Pym. Steve, Fury, and Tony were too recognizable as three of the four astronauts who'd gone to rescue the crew of the _Odyssey_ , and Fyodorova would be staying in the background so as not to be recognized by her countrymen. If questioned, they would be pretending Dr. Pym was in charge.

Pym nodded.

The jet departed again. Once it was gone, the boarding party from the _Sadko_ made their way across the water between them, moving slowly to maneuver their dingy through a sea full of bus-sized chunks of ice. Watching from the deck of the _Sinbad_ , Steve was startled to see that the man in the front of the dinghy was wearing an Admiral's stripes on his jacket. What was somebody so important doing in command of an icebreaker in the middle of nowhere?

He looked at Fury and Fury nodded – it had just gotten worse.

Captain Willard's people helped the Russians on board, and the Admiral straightened his jacket and then looked straight at Steve. Steve could feel any chances of remaining anonymous go swirling down the drain. Yes, things had definitely gotten worse.

Pym rose to the occasion and stepped forward. "Admiral," he said. "Do you speak English?"

"Yes, I do," the man replied. He was of average height and clean-shaven, with a somewhat saggy middle-aged face topped by a furry _ushanka_ hat.

"That's a relief – my Russian is terrible!" said Pym, and shook his hand. "I'm Dr. Henry Pym, of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission! The USS _Puerto Rico_ reported a possible nuclear accident in this area and we're here to look into it!"

"That would be why you've brought Captain America, then?" asked the Admiral, glancing at Steve with a raised eyebrow.

"That's why," Pym agreed, without batting an eye. "I assume you're here for the same purpose?"

The Admiral gave a single, solemn nod. "I am Georgi Bocharov of the Russian Navy," he said. "Your intelligence people are fast, Dr. Pym. We lost contact with the _Ilya Murometz_ in this area only thirty hours ago." His English was excellent, spoken in the rolling Russian accent with its thick vowels.

"Well, then, I hope we can cooperate," said Pym. "In the interests of not spoiling the arctic wilderness."

"Indeed," said Bocharov. "Won't you introduce the rest of your team, Dr. Pym?"

"Glad to." Pym looked at Steve. "I can tell you already know who Captain Steve Rogers is."

"I do." Bocharov shook his hand. "A pleasure, Captain Rogers."

"You too, Admiral Bocharov," said Steve – and then he realized the name was familiar. "Wait, have we already met?" he asked. "Weren't you at Bob Barnum's party in Oslo? The Viking?"

"No, that was my brother, Aleksandr," said Bocharov. "We have been a naval family since the time of Catherine the Great," he added proudly.

Steve nodded. "How is he?" he asked. It was only polite.

"He's dead," said Bocharov curtly, and moved on.

"This is Agent Nick Fury," Pym went on. "And Tony Stark – they were with Captain Rogers on the _Intrepid_ and he likes having them along." He sounded as if he didn't really approve of this. Maybe he didn't. "And Connie Fletcher, also of the NRC."

"Admiral," said Fyodorova. Her accent was suddenly Midwestern, and there was a smile on her face without a trace of fear.

If Bocharov recognized her, he didn't show it. He just shook her hand and moved on to be introduced to Captain Willard, and then turned to address the group as a whole. "I must confess," he said, "at this time we have no way of raising the _Ilya Murometz_. Of course the Soviet Navy has equipment to do such things," he added, "but it cannot be brought into these waters until the ice clears in the spring. Will you be bringing in more vessels?"

"We have a means of getting on board the submarine without having to bring it to the surface," said Pym confidently. "We can retrieve the fissionable material and locate survivors, and determine whether we'll need more help."

"How do you intend to do that?" asked Bocharov.

"I'm afraid it's classified," Pym said.

Bocharov nodded slowly. "If you need our help to locate the _Ilya Murometz_ and transport survivors, we are happy to assist you. With the understanding that our property will be returned to us on the surface, and not photographed or copied."

"Of course," said Pym. "This is a rescue mission, not espionage."

"Glad to hear it."

Over the last few days when he was stuck in Steve's room working, Tony had turned on the television and tuned it to a channel showing nature documentaries. There'd been a sequence with two lions circling each other, trying to decide if they were going to fight. Both had been making shows of strength, but both were also cautious, keeping their heads low so as not to provoke a fight before absolutely necessary. That was what Pym and Bocharov looked like, Steve thought. Like a pair of powerfuul animals trying to assert their own dominance without goading the other into trying to assert _theirs_.

"In that case," Bocharov went on, "I think you should come visit us on the _Sadko_. We have gear you may need to handle the fissionable material on the _Ilya Murometz_ , and we can also provide you with a plan of the vessel and a list of passengers. Translators, too – most of the crew of the submarine will speak very little English."

"That would be very helpful," said Pym. "Well take a look."

Why would he say that, Steve wondered. Surely he realized Bocharov only wanted them on the _Sadko_ so that he could keep an eye on them. When he looked at Fury on his right and Fyodorova on his left, though, he sat both nod slightly, reassuring him. There must be a reason... and after a moment's thought he realized, of course, that this was their chance to look and listen at what was happening on the ship. Steve understood a little Russian and Fyodorova spoke it fluently, but Pym had deliberately not told Bocharov that.

"Wonderful," said Bocharov. "You will be our guests."

"I'd better tell my superiors," said Captain Willard.

"Of course," Bocharov said. "And I mine."

This was absurd, Steve thought. Both parties were expecting the other to stab them in the back at any moment. How could they get anything _done_ this way?

"Rogers and Fletcher," said Pym, "you two come to the _Sadko_ with me. Fury and Stark, you stay here on the _Sinbad_." He glanced at Bocharov – letting him know they were leaving the two behind as witnesses if anything happened. Bocharov appeared to understand.

They climbed into the Russian dinghy and made their slow, careful, achingly cold way back across the hundred yards or so between the two vessels. The chunks of ice floating looked far bigger from the dinghy than they had from the high deck of the _Sinbad_. Steve tried not to look at them. Ice looming up around him was not something he wanted to think about. Nor the dark cold depths below him... he could sink into that, all the way to the bottom... and who knew if he'd ever be found again? He might be washed up and thaw out a million years from now, when humans were extinct and the Earth was haunted by creatures even stranger than Crusoe the dinosaur bird. What an awful thought that was.

"Are you all right, Captain Rogers?" asked Bocharov.

"Yeah, just not a fan of the cold," said Steve. "If I can ask, what happened to your brother?" The other Bocharov hadn't looked ill when Steve had met him – just very, very drunk.

"He was murdered," said Bocharov. "Before the party, he spoke to me on the telephone. He said he feared he would be made an offer he must refuse. The next morning, he was dead in his hotel room. The Norwegian doctor who performed the autopsy said he died of a heart attack."

Bocharov delivered this information while looking directly into Steve's eyes, as if he expected an explanation of some sort. Steve had none, and could only hope Bocharov didn't think _he_ was responsible. How could he be, when he'd been in Tønsberg all night getting people out of the volcanic area?

"I hadn't heard," he said. "I'm sorry."

Bocharov did not reply.

On board the _Sadko_ , they were escorted inside and searched for cameras and microphones. Steve worried they would suspect he had something other than a homing beacon hidden in his watch, but they did not appear to. Once the Soviets were satisfied, they were allowed to put their winter clothes back on, which was a relief. Steve had been looking forward to being somewhere warm and out of the wind, but the interior of the _Sadko_ turned out to be nearly as cold as the arctic air outside. When Bocharov led them into the mess hall, the Russian sailors there were eating or playing cars while dressed in parkas and mittens, their breath misting on the air.

Conversation in the room ceased as if a switch had been thrown when the group walked in. Some of the sailors kept their heads down and watched the Americans out of the corners of their eyes. Others stared openly. Nobody spoke a word.

"I feel like I'm under a microscope," muttered Pym as they sat down.

"You would know," said Steve, but his heart wasn't in the joke. Pym was right. They were being watched minutely. He wondered how long they'd have to be here before Fury and Tony called for help.

Somebody brought them cups of hideously strong but comfortingly warm coffee, and Bocharov brought a set of plans of the _Ilya Murometz_ , which he unrolled with great solemnity. The party leaned over to see, while Bocharov and several others hovered over them to make sure they didn't pull out any hidden cameras the search had somehow missed. Steve immediately noticed that the plans Peggy had given them were inaccurate in several places – the sub carried four missiles, not two – and tried to memorize as many of them as possible, just to spite Bocharov for his paranoia.

Pym nodded slowly. "I can see a number of possible access points," he said. "We'll go down in my sub and make an exploratory inspection using one of these tank valves." He pointed to the points where the sub's ballast tanks could be filled with or emptied of seawater.

"The valves are tiny," said Bocharov, indicating the scale.

"I'm aware," said Pym, and continued talking to Steve and Fyodorova as if Bocharov weren't there. "We can find a way in and confirm whether there's air inside – if there is, we can access the interior, retrieve the fuel rods, and search for survivors. Normally I'd take Janet with me, but since she's not here I'll want one or more of you guys along. If there are multiple survivors we'll have to figure out a way to bring them up, but for a first mission the nuclear material is the priority."

Steve understood – they'd enter using Pym's shrinking technology, but couldn't use it to get survivors out because they didn't want the Russians knowing about it. "All right," he said. "I'll come along, and Fury. Tony and Fletcher can stay up here to keep us in communication with the _Sadko_ and with the mainland." Now he too was talking to Bocharov, reminding him that help was available to them if they needed it. The arrangement would also require them to be returned to the _Sinbad_ , in order to get Fury. It was depressing how easy it was to fall into this way of thinking. "As soon as we get to the surface we give the nuclear material to Bocharov no matter what," he added, for both Bocharov's benefit and Pym's. "Our job is _only_ to get it off the ocean floor. Bocharov and his crew are responsible for safely disposing of it."

"Thank you, Captain Rogers," said Bocharov. "We appreciate your cooperation."

"We appreciate yours," Steve replied.

"If ever there were a situation that called for international cooperation, this is it," Pym agreed. "I'm glad we're all on the same page." There was no warmth in his voice, though – the page they were all on was one where they didn't trust one another, and had no intention of starting to.

* * *

The _Sadko_ and the _Sinbad_ made their way slowly north, grinding through the polar ice. Steve could hear the constant crunch and snap of it breaking ahead of them, and the metallic sounds of it scraping past the hull, and it made him shiver despite his layers of clothing. The night seemed to be going on forever, and Steve had to remind himself that they were above the arctic circle – the sun would not rise again until spring.

Without it, and with the ships themselves as the only source of artificial light in the middle of the distant horizons, the stars were brilliant overhead. Wisps of green aurora flickered among them. Tony had explained to Steve on their trip into space that the aurora was made of glowing particles, trapped in the Earth's magnetic field. The magnetic field was also what had trapped Schmidt's mind when the tesseract had tried to strew his atoms across the universe. Was he still up there, trying to send them a message again within those flickering lights? Or had he died with the body he'd stolen from Commander Shipley?

Steve didn't know the answer, and didn't particularly want to think about it – but he kept his eyes up, because if he brought them _down_ he would see the floating ice and the dark water.

During the war, death had hung over everybody's head so constantly it had become something Steve and his friends joked about. Now it was further away, and yet just as ever-present in his mind. He'd been dead – functionally, legally, and practically – for forty years, but now he'd come back. During the war he'd had dozens of narrow escapes, getting out with only bruises when he should have suffered broken bones or worse. At the time he'd chalked it up to luck. Now he stood there staring up at the stars and wondering... _could_ he die? Forty years in the Arctic Ocean ought to have killed anybody, but it hadn't killed _him_.

Howard had said they didn't know much about the serum's long-term effects. There'd been doctors to examine Steve at regular intervals and after every mission, and they'd always seemed pleased with what they found even as they begged him to be more careful. What would have happened to him if he'd gone flying off into space from the _Intrepid_? Would he have died, or merely shut down again so that god-knows-what could have found him god-knows-when? If he'd fallen into the volcanic crater at Tønsberg, would he have burned? Could he be suffocated? Could he be drowned?

Was he even getting older? That was a thought that had occurred to him once or twice in the past, when he'd thought about Dr. Erskine's explanation of what the serum would do to his cells. There hadn't been enough time to tell during the war, and he'd been frozen since the end of it. What if another forty years went by and he was still no older? What if he had to watch Peggy and Dum-Dum and even _Tony_ grow old and die, while he lived on?

Something touched his arm.

Steve jumped and turned to see what it was, every muscle tensing – but it was only Fyodorova. She had automatically assumed a fighting stance in reaction to his reaction, and relaxed when he did.

"Jumpy?" she asked.

He sighed and leaned on the _Sadko_ 's railing again. "This is insane," he said. "Somebody is going to shoot somebody else before we get anywhere _near_ the _Ilya Murometz_ , and claim they had to do it before the other guy shot them first."

"Yep," said Fyodorova. "That's how it works."

"How do people _live_ like this?" Steve wanted to know. "How do they cope with it?"

"Jazzercise," she said.

That was probably a joke, but Steve didn't understand it. "What can you tell me about Bocharov?" he asked, as quietly as he could and still be heard with the wind rustling in their ears.

"Not much you don't already know," Fyodorova replied. "He doesn't trust us, and he knows we don't trust him. He's gonna try to get what he can from you without letting _you_ get anything from _him_ , and expects you to do the same. If we're all careful, we'll be allowed to go without anybody getting killed. If we're not careful, we'll never be heard from again."

"Anything else?" asked Steve.

"Yeah," said Fyodorova. "The _Sadko_ shouldn't be this cold."

Steve wasn't sure what that meant, but he knew she wouldn't have brought it up if it weren't important. He tried to be subtle about looking over his shoulder to see if anybody were listening, but must have failed, because Fyodorova grabbed his collar and made him lean on the railing again.

"You would make a terrible spy," she said.

"Why is it cold?" he asked.

"Because the heaters are turned down as far as they'll go without actually turning _off_ ," said Fyodorova. "They're saving the power for something else."

"Are you sure about that?" Steve asked.

"The _Sadko_ is nuclear, too," she said. "If the power plant weren't running properly, it would never have left port – we've been very careful with our nuclear reactors since Dvenadstat. I managed to get a look at some of the gauges on the way in. All the readouts are normal. They've got something else on board that's drawing massive amounts of electricity. It's something they wouldn't normally carry, or they wouldn't have to redirect power for it. And it's something that's got to be kept very cold."

Steve's heart beat a little faster. "What do you think it is?"

"Something in cryo-storage," Fyodorova said. Her shrug was casual, but her voice was deeply significant.

Steve felt his jaw muscles tense. "I see." If the Winter Soldier were transported frozen, he would be vulnerable. Steve would have an ideal chance to take him out. At the same time, the man's very presence here on the _Sadko_ brought up a host of questions. "Who do you think he's here for?"

"I don't know," she replied. "It's not you, me, or Pym, because if it were we'd all be dead already. It's not Fury or Stark, because they were okay with leaving them behind on the _Sinbad_ , and it's hardly as if they _need_ a specialized assassin to take us out up here. We're in the middle of nowhere. They could just sink the other ship, throw us overboard, and come up with any story they wanted."

Steve took a deep breath and let it out again in a cloud of steam. "Peggy told me not to go after him until we'd sorted this out," he said, to remind himself as much as to inform Fyodorova. "But I might never get another opportunity."

"Careful," she warned him. "We need Bocharov's cooperation right now, and destroying a secret weapon would upset him."

That was true – but it barely seemed important in light of the fact that the Winter Soldier had murdered Howard and nearly done the same to Eva. "At least I know where he is," Steve said.

"And he won't be going anywhere else in the near future," said Fyodorova. "There's not a lot of rescue opportunities up here."

Maybe they could sink the _Sadko_ and leave the Winter Soldier to freeze alone in the arctic ice, Steve thought. There would be something poetic about that.

He realized his fingernails were biting into his palms right through the mittens he was wearing, and unclenched his fists, forcing himself to put his anger aside. Fyodorova was right – until they found the _Ilya Murometz_ , they needed Bocharov. Once that was done, though, Steve would be waiting for an opportunity to present itself. He would take whatever excuse he could get.

"Speaking of rescue," he said, "what about you? They don't seem like they know who you are." He'd half-expected Fyodorova to be recognized at once and dragged away to be shot, but it hadn't happened.

"I don't think they do," she agreed, "but that doesn't mean somebody won't recognize me eventually, or that someone in Moscow won't read their communications and get suspicious. I know I can't expect any help. Madame Director said they can have me if they want me."

What would Steve do if they asked? Would he try to save her? Or would he pretend, as Fury and Pym doubtless would, that they'd had no idea there was a spy in their midst? He'd like to think the former, but really nobody ever knew how they would act in these situations until one came up.

"Do you have a plan if it happens?" he asked. She _was_ still wearing the earrings with the beacon.

"Yes, I do," Fyodorova replied, "but you don't need to worry about that. Your orders are to leave me. You need Madame Director to trust you, because you need her help to save the world. You need that more than you need me," she said firmly, looking him in the eyes. "So if you have to choose, choose _her_."

That was perfectly practical, admirably selfless, and yet also completely horrible... but what was it Peggy had called Steve? An 'obstinate, self-sacrificing wanker'. Would she have said the same thing about Fyodorova? No, probably not... she would probably just have been glad to be rid of her.

Fyodorova must trust people even less than Peggy did, he thought. She certainly would never have trusted a soul at SHIELD when she'd been undercover there, not even the people who'd believed they were her closest friends, and it was clear that it had been a long time since she'd trusted her superiors in the USSR, either. Konstantina Fyodorova relied entirely on herself. Placing Natalia in the back seat of Steve's car might have been the first time in decades that she'd done such a thing.

"I really didn't know Peggy was going to treat Natalia like that," said Steve. "I swear I didn't. I'm sorry."

"It doesn't matter if you did or not," she replied. "It happened."

Footsteps announced a sailor approaching – they turned to see a man in a thick red parka, his face almost hidden behind the forest of frost on the hood's fur trim. "Bocharov says it is time to go back to your own ship," he said, his Russian accent even thicker than the Admiral's own. "We're almost there."

"We're coming," Fyodorova replied with a smile. She and Steve both straightened up – it was time to go to work.

* * *

Bocharov guided the two ships to a position above where he said the _Ilya Murometz_ had vanished, using a sextant and the stars to get the location exactly right. Then Steve, Pym, and Fyodorova had to make another treacherous trip between the two. The ocean was calmer here, but the chunks of floating ice were bigger, and Steve couldn't help but look at the massive bergs all around them and think how easily a collision between the two would grind their tiny boat to powder.

Then, no sooner were they back on deck of the _Sinbad_ when it was time to get off again. They went to the far side of the ship, where the crew of the _Sadko_ would be unable to see what they were doing, and Hank Pym pulled a matchbox out of his pocket.

"Ten seconds," he said, and dropped what looked like a small bead into the water. "Don't lean over, everybody. You're likely to get wet."

There was a sudden splash, and the _Sinbad_ rocked violently as a large object appeared where there had formerly been nothing. Steve had to grab the railing in one arm and Tony in the other to keep both of them from being thrown overboard. Other people yelped and grabbed one another, and held on while the heaving sea settled down. Once he felt he could do so without falling over, Steve opened his eyes and returned to the side of the boat for a look.

Pym's submarine was quite small – three people was as much as it could hold, and it was clear that they would not be comfortable. The name written on the side of it was _Camponotus_. Its shape was reminiscent of Barton and Beebe's bathyscape, which Steve could remember reading newspaper articles about as a child. It was designed to go deep and stay down a long time.

"Either of you done any diving?" asked Pym. He swung himself over the side of the _Sadko_ to stand on top of the little sub, and began cranking open the hatch.

Steve and Fury exchanged a look. "We've been to space," said Steve. "That's got pressure and airlocks and so forth."

"Well, space is kind of the _opposite_ of a submarine," Pym said. "In a submarine you're keeping pressure _out_ rather than keeping it _in_."

"There'll be gravity in the submarine, too," Tony added.

"But at least you understand the basic principle of not opening the windows," Pym said. The hatch opened with a creak, and he let himself down into the chamber. "Come on, we don't have all day."

Steve swung a leg over the railing of the ship to follow him. He was starting to suspect that Hank Pym was much easier to deal with when Janet was around to lighten him up. It must have been a case of opposites attracting... the only time Steve could remember seeing Janet not smiling was at Howard Stark's funeral, but when he tried to recall Hank doing anything other than frown, he came up with nothing. He climbed down into the _Camponotus_.

The space inside was tiny. The inside of the space shuttle, crammed with equipment and seats, had been cramped, but this was smaller yet. The little cabin was spherical, with every square inch of the walls covered in computer screens and instruments except for the hatch and the single tiny window. Three seats were arranged back-to-back in the middle, and were designed for small, slim Hank and Janet, not for hulking Steve. He barely fit, and knew he'd be bumping elbows with the other two men for the entire journey.

"Hey, Captain!" Tony leaned over to shout down into the submarine. "When you get back, we've gotta rent _Fantastic Voyage_! Okay?"

"I'll try to remember that," Steve promised.

Fury climbed down last, and pulled the hatch shut after him.

"Turn it three full turns," Hank said. "No matter how difficult it is."

"It's not difficult. I work out," Fury said. He huffed as he made sure the handle was properly locked in place, and then settled down into his seat.

"Fortunately, we're not going down very far," said Pym, as they all did up their seat harnesses. "We'll have to come up slowly to decompress, but it shouldn't take longer than an hour. And now, a word of caution," he added, holding up a finger. "If we have to shrink, nobody can leave the sub while it's tiny except for me. I've got a suit on. If anybody who's _not_ wearing one leaves the area where the particles are active, the results tend to be..." he paused. "I'm going to say _messy_."

Steve decided he didn't want to know what he meant by that.

Darkness fell surprisingly quickly as they descended. Steve was given the job of watching the depth gauge, while Fury monitored cabin pressure. Pym, meanwhile, did all the steering, with his eyes glued to the single tiny window. A couple of times Steve looked over his shoulder to see if anything were visible outside, but all he could see beyond the cabin lights was darkness. They could have been underwater or floating in a void, and Steve wouldn't have been able to tell.

The deeper they got, the colder it was. Dew began to form on the instruments as the men's breath condensed. Somebody must have spilled coffee on their clothing at some point – in the close air of the cabin Steve could smell it, but couldn't tell whose it was. Maybe it was his own, and he'd just forgotten.

"There she is," said Pym.

This time, Steve and Fury both turned in their seats to look over Pym's shoulders. If they put their heads in just the right place, they could see the tiny area illuminated by the sub's spotlight. It showed a long shape lying on the bottom, among rocks and sand and surprisingly bright pink starfish. The _Ilya Murometz_ appeared to have come to rest against a spire of rock that jutted up from the bottom like a pinnacle, just behind the conning tower. It looked weirdly out-of-place on the otherwise flat sea-bottom terrain, as if it had been dropped onto it from above, or thrust up from below, by some outside force.

"This might not have anything to do with what's going on at Yanranay," Fury said. "Maybe they just ran into that rock." He sounded doubtful – he, too, must have thought the spire looked unnatural.

"There's only one way to find out," said Steve.


	15. Chapter 15: Sole Survivor

The _Ilya Murometz_ was a big, black, barrel-shaped submarine. Last time Steve had been on board a submarine, it had been a German U-Boat, a cramped little vessel that had reminded him of a trout – a narrow, silvery thing designed to slip unnoticed through the depths. The _Ilya Murometz_ was more like a hippopotamus, a creature that dominated its environment through sheer bulk but didn't really feel like it _belonged_ there. As the little _Camponotus_ swam closer, the Soviet sub loomed bigger and bigger, looking less like a vehicle and more like a building lying on the bottom of the sea.

"Where's that outlet for the ballast tanks?" Pym asked.

Fury grabbed their folder of blueprints and flipped through them. "Let me see... they're not on this diagram, but I think the ones Bocharov showed us had it right..."

"There." Steve reached over to point at the place. "Starboard will be wedged against the rock, but port should be free." The sub was lying slightly on its side on the bottom.

"Port it is."

Pym brought the _Camponotus_ closer yet. Steve's eyes were glued to the window now, his neck starting to ache from being held at that unnatural angle. He found himself irrationally afraid that the giant submarine would tip over and fall on them, or that they would ram into it. The cold of the arctic water outside seemed to be seeping into his bones, freezing him again from the inside out. Steve realized he was gripping the edges of his seat with both hands, and quickly forced himself to stop as he remembered what his nervous hands had done to the seat arms on the space shuttle _Intrepid_.

Finally, when it seemed as if they _must_ run into the hull at any second, Pym brought them to a gentle halt. "All right," he said. "I see the opening. Everybody hang on, we're going in." He began activating a set of switches, and a row of tubes above one of the instrument panels filled with a red substance. This gave off a soft glow, tinting the light in the cabin an ominous pink.

"What does it feel like?" Steve asked. He imagined feeling like he was falling, or feeling crushed as his entire body was packed suddenly into a smaller space.

"It doesn't 'feel like' anything if it's done right," Pym replied. "And don't worry, I'm the world's leading expert."

"You're literally the _only guy who does this_ ," Fury pointed out.

"There will be a jolt," Pym warned. The last of the tubes filled, and a light turned green. "Hang on." He punched a button.

There _was_ a jolt. In fact, there was a _drop_ – they seemed to fall for several seconds, and then were jostled left and right, spun around and flipped upside-down by rushing water. Steve grabbed at his seat again, and Fury yelped in surprise. The ocean water had found a bubble of empty space where an object had formerly been, and had rushed to fill it. Outside the windows were a maelstrom of bubbles.

"Cavitation," said Pym calmly. "The sudden drop in pressure boils the water."

Fury was holding on, white-knuckled, to his harness. "That was a hell of a _jolt_ ," he panted.

Once the bubbles began to clear, Pym took control of the submarine again. When Steve stretched his neck and turned to look outside again, all he could see was a yawning black cavern ahead of them. Where the sub's lights fell on it, it was crusted with mineral formations and strange alien things that looked like grayish volcanoes with frondy plants growing out of the craters... until he realized they were barnacles, magnified a hundred times.

"We're not gonna get attacked by anything in here, are we?" Steve asked. Who knew what kind of monsters were lurking under the arctic ice.

"If we are, we can enlarge again," said Hank.

"Won't that destroy the sub if we're in an enclosed space?" asked Fury.

"Possibly." Pym didn't sound particularly worried about it.

The sound of the _Camponotus_ ' engines echoed low and ominous in the pipe from the ocean to the ballast tank. It was like being inside a giant bell. A change in the sound signaled when they emerged into the bigger tank. Pym brought them up, and soon they were bobbing on the surface of what looked like a vast sea.

"I'm going to go up and check out how big the tank is." Pym grabbed his helmet from the floor between his feet, and put it on, then wiggled out of the winter clothes he was wearing on top of his shrinking suit. "You two stay put."

Steve nodded and remained seated while Pym unscrewed the hatch and climbed up for a look. He glanced at Fury, and found the other man looking back at him with a worried expression.

"You don't happen to know what he meant by _messy_ , do you?" Steve asked softly.

Fury shook his head. "I can't speak from experience, but I can imagine it."

Steve could, too. His imagination was supplying something moist and _explosive_.

Pym climbed back down a moment later. "Looks like we've got _just_ enough room," he said. "Which is good – otherwise you two would be stuck in here while I did all the exploratory work myself."

"How about oxygen?" Fury checked the external gauge. "Looks like it, but CO2 levels are high. We should take our rebreathers, just in case."

"There." Pym pointed to the compartment they were stored in. Fury started getting them out, while Pym settled into his seat again. "All right, hold on. There's gonna be another jolt."

Remembering the last 'jolt', Steve hung on tight, but this one wasn't nearly so bad. The hull of the _Camponotus_ hit the side of the ballast tank with a _clang_ when they enlarged, but there wasn't enough water inside for any really violent motion. Waves slopped over the window and a bit of water trickled in through the hatch, which Pym had not closed tightly. Then, within seconds, it was over.

"Going down is always rougher than coming up," said Pym. He got up to climb to the hatch again. "Fury, there's supposed to be an access panel so they can clean this tank."

"Yeah." Fury consulted the blueprints again. "It's aft and on the inner side."

He and Steve put on their breathing masks – Pym apparently had one built into his Ant-Man Suit – and climbed out. After some fumbling in the dark and the freezing cold water, with only flashlights and the lights from the _Camponotus_ to guide them, they found the access hatch and Steve broke the bar to force it open. One by one, they wiggled through into the narrow hallway beyond.

Steve tried not to think about the volume of icy water looming over them, held up only by the damaged hull of the submarine.

"Do you smell that?" asked Fury.

Steve took a deep breath. The stale oxygen from the tank was the main thing he could smell, but somewhere under that was a sharp hint of fish and meat. Mixed with the cold, damp atmosphere, it reminded Steve of trips to the fish market with his mother on chilly days. He could remember vividly the itchy woolen shawl she'd used to wrap around his neck, trying to loosen the phlegm so he could breathe.

"Is that just the ocean?" he asked.

"No," said Pym. "Their stores shouldn't have had time to turn yet. It's too damn cold in here."

"We need to do this as quickly as possible," Steve decided. He didn't want to stay in this place a moment longer than absolutely necessary. "Fury, you and Pym head forward. Look for survivors, make note of flooded areas, and check the weapons for anything that looks in danger of blowing. They'll need to know what condition things are in before they can attempt salvage. I'll go aft and check out the reactors." Last time they'd gone into a nuclear reactor, Fury had lost his hair and suffered from a week or so of radiation sickness. Steve was probably less susceptible to that, so he would go into the dangerous area himself. "Keep each other informed of your movements, and come back _immediately_ if I give the order." He didn't want a repeat of Janet getting hurt on the _Achilles_. "Understand?"

"Got it," said Fury.

Pym didn't say anything, so Steve looked him in the eye – or as close as he could come with the other man in a helmet and the darkness all around them – and said, "understand, Pym?"

There was a moment of stiff silence. Then, "I understand."

Steve noted that the man hadn't said he would _obey_ , but Steve hadn't asked him that. He just nodded, and set off.

His footsteps echoed, mingling with the sound of dripping water, as he moved aft along the length of the submarine. The floor was textured metal and the walls pained beige, in an effort to make them look more like part of an aboveground building. There were bundles of wires and pipes in the ceiling, so he followed those, figuring they would lead to the vessel's source of power. There were doors on the left side of the hallway, some of them open but most of them not. The open ones he peeked through, into offices and dormitories, but found nobody. The closed ones, he left alone for now.

Where was everybody?

As Steve moved further back, he began to find the rock. His stomach sank as he realized his first gut reaction had been correct: the _Ilya Murometz_ hadn't run into a spire of rock, it had been _impaled_ by it. It was impossible to tell just yet, but he expected that if he looked close, he would find the stone fused with the metal hull.

That suggested the tesseract must have been here at some point – but when? They were hundreds of miles from where it had been found, at the point where it fell from the _Valkyrie_ after tearing Schmidt apart. Maybe it had been here for a while before it ended up in Tønsberg? But all the evidence was that it had been in that little church in Norway for a millennium before HYDRA found it...

Then he started to find the animals. Bits of ferns and horsetails were embedded in the walls, one of them with a creature that looked like a possum still clinging to it. A puddle of water on the floor was filled with dead fish and frogs and rushes, all merged with the metal. Steve shut his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to ignore the smell of rot as he steeled himself. He would start finding people soon. He knew it.

He arrived at a door with the radioactivity symbol on it and a big Cyrillic warning. This was what he was looking for – Steve broke it down, and entered the reactor room.

There turned out to be very little to find in there. The machinery in the middle was completely embedded in the tower of stone that had been gouged out of the side of some prehistoric cliff and transplanted to the bottom of the arctic ocean. There was lichen growing on it, and in places nests of seabird eggs, half stuck in the lead shielding that surrounded the central reactor.

At least the rock would make sure the radioactivity didn't pollute the ocean, Steve thought. With the uranium thus entombed, there was nothing more he could do here. He doubted there were any survivors in this part of the sub, and he couldn't go any further back. It was time to rejoin Pym and Fury. Steve began to turn away, but then an odd, unnaturally geometric shape caught his eye in the flashlight beam.

Puzzled, he moved around to the side of the spire of rock, where it had penetrated the wall of the room. It was mostly solid, but there was a perfectly circular gap in the middle of it, and when he got closer he saw another shape within _that_. It looked like the head of a torpedo, with something attached to it.

The torpedo must have penetrated the side of the _Ilya Murometz_ , but then the rock appearing all around it had sealed the hole instantaneously, before the ocean could start to come in. However, the very tip of the missile and everything around it for about eighteen inches had remained untouched. Steve held up his flashlight to examine it.

There had once been a cap on the end of the torpedo, but that had been ejected to reveal a cylindrical device about as big as a soda can, with a dull metal hull. The end of it screwed into the body of the torpedo – Steve reached out, gingerly, to pull it out. The metal was icy-cold to the touch, even through his thick gloves, and it was difficult to get any traction. He had to wedge his flashlight into a crack in the rock in order to have light while he used both hands.

Once the device was free, Steve found a series of wires and one thick plastic cable running from the back of it into the body of the torpedo. He pulled those out one by one, and then put his head as far into the hole in the rock as he could to look inside. Where a normal torpedo would have contained explosives, this one held a glass canister etched with a familiar logo: a skull with tentacles protruding from it. Despite the cold, Steve felt a bead of sweat run down the middle of his back. He'd seen canisters like that before – those were the things Zola had invented to contain the energy of the tesseract.

Tony had said the problem with time travel was energy. The tesseract was supposedly a source of _unlimited_ power. But if HYDRA already _had_ tesseract power left over from the war to run their time machine, then what were they using it to _look_ for?

Steve carefully tucked the little machine into his pocket. He would have to give it to Tony to study. If anybody could figure this out, Tony could. If nothing else, sooner or later they would run out of wrong ideas and hit on the answer by sheer accident.

Then his radio crackled. "Hey, Rogers," said Fury. "Come up front. We've got somebody. We've found a survivor!"

"What?" Steve asked, startled. Once he'd found the first bits of rock, he'd more or less given up on finding anyone alive. A survivor was somebody who could tell them what had happened here and give them a clue what HYDRA _wanted_. And more important, a survivor was somebody they could still _save_. "I'm on my way," he promised.

He found Fury in the very bow of the sub, on a metal mesh catwalk that allowed sailors to inspect the massive tubes that held the _Ilya Murometz_ ' two atomic missiles. The space around them was huge and dark and echoey, empty except for endless pipes and wires, dials and gauges, and the looming missile tubes. There was no water or dead animals here, but there _was_ something that had been missing in the reactor room.

There were bodies.

Half a dozen dead men in dark Soviet naval coveralls were lying dead on the catwalk itself or slumped against the railings. Steve suspected that if he looked over the side, he'd find more that had fallen into the bottom of the vast room. Some of them had dark stains on their skin or clothing, but for the moment Steve didn't bother to look at them longer than it took to ascertain that they were dead.

There was no sign of Pym, but a few yards past the dead was Fury. He'd taken off his winter jacket and wrapped it around a pale young man who sat shivering on the catwalk.

Steve knelt down to look at the survivor. _Young_ was an understatement – this was a kid, no more than twenty if that. " _Druz'ya_ ," Steve said carefully – _friends_. "We're here to help you. Do you speak English?"

"No English," the kid replied in a thick accent.

"Right," said Steve. He racked his brain, trying to remember his Russian. He could usually figure out what _other_ people were saying, but trying to come up with words of his own was for some reason far harder. " _Menya zovut_ Steve Rogers," he managed.

"Kolesnikov," the young man said. "Alexei."

"Nice to meet you, Alexei," said Steve. "You're gonna be okay. We're here to help you." He hoped a reassuring tone could get across what his words could not. "Um. _Bol'she muzhchin_?" _More men?_ Were there more survivors?

Alexei shook his head. " _Nyet_ ," he replied. " _Tol'ko ya_." _Only me_.

Steve patted the kid's back and looked up at Fury, who was shivering without his jacket. "Where's Pym?" Steve asked.

"He went to check on the missiles," said Fury, teeth chattering. He looked around at the pair of giant tubes looming in the darkness. "I assume he's in there somewhere. I wouldn't tap on them. Might deafen him."

"All right," said Steve. "As soon as he gets back, we better return to the _Camponotus_. If Alexei is the only one here, we need to take him back to the surface so Fyodorova can question him." If Bocharov would allow it, that was. He studied the boy's face again. " _Skol'ko tebe let?_ " asked Steve. How old was this kid.

" _Semnadtsat'_ ," was the immediate reply. Alexei Kolesnikov was seventeen.

Pym seemed to take an awfully long time about whatever it was he was doing, but he finally reappeared, rubbing his arms and stamping his feet against the cold as he materialized on the catwalk ten feet away. Alexei let out a yelp and then stared with huge blue eyes, astonished and horrified by what these Americans could do. Steve squeezed his shoulder, and quietly repeated his assertion that they were friends.

"None of the tubes appear to be damaged," said Pym. "Was the ship carrying live missiles on this mission?"

Steve looked at Fury. Fury shrugged.

"It's got space for two, but Bocharov didn't bring it up," he said. "For understandable reasons."

"I wasn't asking you," said Pym. "I need somebody to ask _him_." He pointed to Alexei.

"Oh," said Steve. He looked at Alexei, but his brain blanked. His very basic Russian didn't extend to a question like that. "I don't know the Russian work for _missile_ ," he said. "That's why we brought Fyodorova." Steve patted Alexei's thin shoulder, and stood up. "Did you _find_ missiles?"

"The instruments show the tubes are open and full of water," Pym said.

"All right," said Steve. "So there are no missiles on board and the reactor's been merged with the rock. That means we're not going to have a nuclear disaster in the near future, and they can wait until spring to do any salvage work. Let's get this kid up top where we can warm him up and talk to him." Steve would not use the word _interrogate_ of a seventeen-year-old boy... but he also would not mention his own findings in front of the kid, just in case Alexei was lying about not speaking English.

"Can we do that in Pym's tiny sub?" asked Fury.

"Is there enough oxygen on board to get four people to the surface?" Steve wanted to know.

"Barely," said Pym.

"Then yes," Steve nodded once.

"I don't want some Russian seeing how my particles work!" Pym protested.

"I've seen it, and I don't have a _clue_ how it works," Steve pointed out. "He's a _kid_ , Hank. We're not leaving him down here all by himself a second time!" Not after Steve had already told the boy they were friends. Besides, if they left him behind, they wouldn't know what was happening to him... some other accident could held his life before they could come back for him. "If somebody needs to stay down here while you make a second trip, I'll do it."

Pym looked annoyed, but he gave in. "Then let's get out of here," he said. "I don't trust the hull to hold."

Steve helped Alexei to his feet, and they made their way back down the length of the sub to the tank where they'd left the _Camponotus_. There were unpleasant sounds all around them, drips and groans and distant shuddering noises that really did make it feel like the whole submarine could collapse at any moment, or the walls burst and the icy ocean come rushing in. What had it been like for Alexei, Steve wondered, trapped down here all alone for two days with no idea whether he was waiting for rescue or simply for death?

He wondered how the kid knew he was the only one alive. Had all the others committed suicide?

Three people in Pym's tiny sub had been cramped – four was almost unbearable. The small space trapped their body heat. With three it had been chilly, but with four it began to feel warm, and Alexei had not bathed in days. Since Pym steered with pedals, Alexei had to curl up on the floor between Steve's legs and Fury's, keeping his head down so that they could still see the instruments.

"Prepare for cavitation," said Pym.

Fury grabbed the harness. Steve grabbed Alexei and hoped that was enough to tell the kid to brace for something. Pym pressed the button, and the little sub dropped. Alexei cried out in terror again and squeezed Steve's hand.

This time there was more than just the jolt though. When the _Camponotus_ had enlarged earlier, it had forced water out of the tank. The only route this could take was the same pipe and valve they'd come in by. Now when they shrank again, water had to come back _in_ to the tank to replace what the sub had displaced. Already weakened by the previous shock, the side of the tank gave way with a shriek of rusty metal. Seawater came roaring in, snatching up the shrunken sub and sending it tumbling end-over-end. They banged off walls, rolled down pipes, and after a few terrible minutes in which 'up' and 'down' ceased to have any meaning and Steve's entire will was focused on not throwing up, they finally came to rest with something murky and brown drifting past the windows.

After a moment of panting in terror, all four of the passengers moved to look through the small porthole and see where they were.

They were looking at some cloudy white substance that showed a reflection. Steve wondered if it were glass, but then it _moved_. They were staring into the eye of an enormous fish.

No, not enormous, Steve thought. It was probably very small. The problem was, so were they.

Alexei shrieked as the fish, which had been momentarily stunned by the surge of water, began to swim again. The currents it generated tossed them around like a cork, and Pym fought for control of the _Camponotus_.

"Where the hell are we?" asked Steve.

"I don't know. We have to find open ocean before we can enlarge again." Pym got the sub right-side up, and then began following the fish, which was flitting around nosing at the walls of whatever space they were in. "Otherwise there may not be enough room, and we could damage the sub."

"Great. Any other good news?" Fury asked.

"With four people on board we have less than an hour before we run out of air," Pym replied calmly.

"He was being sarcastic," Steve pointed out.

"I wasn't," Pym said. "We'll follow the fish. It'll find its way out, and we'll go with it."

"What if it eats us?" Fury asked.

"Then we'll enlarge and burst out of its stomach like the creature from _Alien_ ," was Pym's answer. Steve began to suspect that for all his grouchy demeanour, he secretly enjoyed things like this.

The fish finally slipped through a crack, and they followed it down a lightless tunnel to finally emerge at the top of the _Ilya Murometz_ , just in front of the conning tower. Everybody breathed a sigh of relief, and after reaching a safe distance, Pym enlarged the _Camponotus_ again. With water on all sides, this was not nearly such a violent process as it had been at the surface of the the _Ilya Murometz_ ' ballast tank.

"Where'd we come out by?" Fury wanted to know. One of his hands was still gripping his harness. The other was clutching the front of his shirt, as if he feared he were having a heart attack.

"I'll take a look." Pym turned the sub and tilted it so the window could look down. "We need to get an idea of how much damage that caused, anyway. I figured a nuclear attack submarine would be strong enough that we couldn't break it, but maybe it had already taken more of a beating than I thought." He sounded like a schoolteacher, disappointed in the Soviet Navy's poor performance.

There was a slow, suspenseful moment as they hung in the water and Pym looked over the _Ilya Murometz_. Steve sat back, waiting for the assessment. He was itching to see for himself, but he didn't want to get in the way.

"Other than the hole in the side of the ballast tank, it doesn't look too bad," Pym said. "Since the hatch we used opens in, the water may have forced it shut again. Possibly there'll still be air inside the living quarters, but I'm not going to take it for granted."

He sounded as if there were something else. "But?" Steve prompted.

"The missile tubes are open and empty. And they didn't come open in the accident. They've been cut with a blowtorch. I can see the scorch marks on the doors."

Another uncomfortably quiet moment went by while everybody considered the implications of this.

"They can't have been fired," said Fury. "Because they would have had to come down somewhere, and we would damned well know where a nuclear missile came down."

Steve wanted to hope that there'd never been missiles on board in the first place, but that couldn't be right. If there'd been nothing in the tubes, whoever had cut the first one open wouldn't have bothered doing the same with the second. "Maybe they ended up in another time," he said, but that was not a reassuring possibility. In another time, they _might_ just sit harmlessly on the sea floor – or they might end up in the hands of somebody who would do terrible things with them, in the past or in the future.

"Hopefully, our little comrade here knows," said Pym, and began their ascent.

Steve sat very quietly during the forty-five minutes it took to get to the surface. It was difficult to be patient, but Pym wasn't willing to go any faster for fear of getting the bends. Sitting and waiting, however, gave Steve far too much time to start dwelling again on the cold arctic water.

The possibility of being frozen again, however, was almost not quite as stressful as wondering what they were going to do when they got back to the _Sinbad_. Would they be able to question Alexei properly and learn anything from him, or would Bocharov take him away? Would he be able to _tell_ them anything, or had he been cowering in terror while whatever had happened, happened? Steve could hardly have blamed him if he had. What did this place, and two missing atomic missiles, have to do with the tesseract?

Had HYDRA been using their time travel technology as a weapon all along? But what was there in Tønsberg, or at the _Achilles_ , that they wanted to attack?

The object Steve had taken from the torpedo sat heavily in his pocket. Whatever happened, even if they couldn't talk to Alexei, he had to give that to Tony. Tony would know what it did, and how to fight it.

"We've got another problem," said Pym, breaking the silence with the last words any of them wanted to hear.

"Oh, hey, awesome," groaned Fury. " _Now_ what?"

"There's only one ship up there waiting for us."

Steve turned to look at the sonar. Sure enough, it showed one object on the ocean's surface. Either the _Sinbad_ or the _Sadko_ – it did not indicate which – had vanished. Either way, that was trouble. If the _Sadko_ were gone, it had probably run home to tell its superiors about the trespassing Americans. If the _Sinbad_ were gone... then they had a whole _other_ set of problems.


	16. Chapter 16: Alexei's Story

The _Camponotus_ bobbed to the surface next to the remaining ship, and Pym opened up the hatch to investigate. Steve and Fury remained in their seats, in case they immediately had to dive again. Alexei stayed curled up in between their legs, tensed like a rubber band, waiting to react to whatever turned out to be going on.

"Admiral!" said Pym. "What happened to the _Sinbad_?"

Steve's insides gave a twist. If the _Sinbad_ were gone, were Tony and Fyodorova gone, too? Why had he let Tony come along on this mission anyway? The kid was only sixteen... he didn't belong here any more than Alexei Kolesnikov did.

"The _Sinbad_ suffered a fire in the engine room and had to be abandoned," said Bocharov calmly. "Don't worry – we had time to take the crew on board our vessel, and we are happy to continue our investigation. In situations such as this, international cooperation is more important than ever."

Steve would not have known what to say to that. The first things that went through his head were a half-dozen conspiracy theories – had one of Bocharov's men planted an incendiary on board when they'd visited the _Sinbad_ earlier? Before his thoughts could get any further than that, however, Alexei had gotten stiffly to his feet. Fury's borrowed coat slid off his shoulders, forgotten, as he climbed into Steve's lap and grabbed the ladder to the hatch.

"Alexei!" Steve grabbed the boy's shirt. "What are you doing?"

"Admiral!" Alexei shouted. " _Eto ya_!"

"Alexei?" asked Bocharov, his voice astonished. " _Kak vy syuda popali?_ " _How did you get here?_

Pym had to get out of the way quickly to let Alexei climb up and after that there didn't seem to be much point in staying on the sub any longer. Fury went next, then Steve, who climbed into the little boat the _Sadko_ had lowered to find Alexei kneeling in the bottom of it, surrounded by people who were patting his back and smiling at him. Bocharov took off his own winter coat and hat and put them on the boy, then looked up at the sailors watching them from the deck of the _Sadko_ , twenty feet above, and nodded to them.

"We can make arrangements to take your submarine on board, as well, Dr. Pym," he said.

"No need," said Pym, slipping something into his pocket.

Bocharov blinked and looked into the water, but the _Camponotus_ was gone. He looked up at Pym, then back at Alexei, and decided where his priorities were. " _Vytashchite nas_!" he shouted to the men above. They hauled on the ropes, and the boat lifted out of the water.

When they reached the deck, Bocharov got up to help Alexei out of the little boat first. The boy staggered a few steps, then sank to his knees as men surrounded him. He was wrapped in several silver lifesaving blankets and somebody pushed a styrofoam cup into his hands. The boy tilted his head back to look up at the stars and the aurora, then sipped the contents of the cup – and then dissolved into tears.

Bocharov knelt down and put his arms around the boy, letting him cry on his shoulder and reassuring him in Russian that everything would be all right. " _I will take you home_ ," he promised. " _Your Mama will be happy to see you. Don't worry, I will take revenge on the people who did this. You will see_."

A fairly large crowd had gathered by this time, and Steve was glad to notice Captain Willard from the _Sinbad_ among them. He didn't really feel _better_ , though, until they were settled inside. The mess hall in the _Sadko_ was still damned cold, but it seemed positively tropical after the intense damp chill and claustrophobia of the _Ilya Murometz_. Somebody brought a space heater over to their table, and the cook provided bowls of some kind of cabbage soup. It wasn't something Steve would have sought out to eat, but it was nice and hot, and for the moment that was all that mattered. On his third spoonful, he happened to look up and see a pair of familiar faces among the Russian sailors – Konstantina Fyodorova and Tony Stark.

So they were okay. Thank goodness. And now that he knew that, Steve could focus on his soup. He ate three helpings of it and quite a bit of bread, and drank two cups of hot chocolate that tasted like it had a bit of vodka in it. While he ate, Bocharov sat down next to Alexei and began talking to him. The Russians stood around listening to the conversation, hanging on every word. Steve understood bits and pieces of it, but not enough to put together the entire story.

It didn't matter, because he knew he didn't need to. Fyodorova was at the next table, eating a meal of her own. She didn't look as if she were paying any attention to what Alexei was saying, but Steve knew better.

Steve was on his second bowl when Bocharov finished his conversation with Alexei, and decided it was time to interrogate the Americans. The boy was led away, and the sailors moved in closer around the table. Cutting off any possible escape routes, Steve thought.

"What is the state of the _Ilya Murometz_ ' reactor, Dr. Pym?" the admiral asked.

"You'd better ask Captain Rogers that," said Pym. "He's the one who inspected it directly."

Bocharov nodded, and looked at Steve.

What should he say? Did the Soviets already know what had really happened at Tønsberg and the _Achilles_? If they did, then perhaps the two groups really _could_ work together against HYDRA instead of just pretending to while looking for opportunities to undermine each other. That might not be a possibility anymore, not after Bocharov might well have deliberately sunk the _Sinbad_ and taken its crew hostage. Besides, if they _didn't_ know about HYDRA's time travel technology, Peggy would probably be furious that Steve was the one who'd told them...

After a moment of mental struggling, Steve decided hell with it – he'd been raised to believe that honesty was the best policy, and even shifty allies were better than _no_ allies when they apparently had an enemy who could manipulate time. "Don't worry about the reactor, Admiral Bocharov," he said. "It's embedded in the rocks. Worry about the missiles."

Bocharov frowned and leaned closer. "Explain," he said.

Steve did. He continued to eat between sentences, but he told the truth: that whoever attacked the _Ilya Murometz_ had used some kind of teleportation technology that had merged the whole vessel with a piece of a cliff, and that they'd done something similar at least twice before. The point of the attack had apparently been to steal the submarine's two missiles, and nobody had survived except Alexei.

As he spoke, he noticed what he _wasn't_ telling Bocharov: not only did he avoid describing how they'd gotten from the _Camponotus_ into the _Ilya Murometz_ , he never mentioned what the connection between Tønsberg and the _Achilles_ was. It wasn't relevant to this situation, Steve told himself. This was about the missing warheads, not about the tesseract. That was a rationalization, of course. If he'd really wanted Bocharov as an ally against HYDRA, Steve would have told him the _whole_ truth. But how could he trust this man with that information when he'd sunk an American ship without provocation?

Then again, Steve didn't _know_ that Bocharov had deliberately sunk the _Sinbad_. All he had was a suspicion. This was absurd.

He tried to keep his eyes on either Bocharov or his soup, but Steve couldn't stop himself from glancing at Fury and Pym a couple of times during the story. Pym sat there scowling in obvious disapproval of sharing _anything_ with the Russians. Fury looked concerned at first but after a while, he started making contributions of his own to describe the state of the missile room and the men who'd died there. Steve wondered what he was thinking, and decided he'd most likely concluded that if Bocharov was less likely to kill them if he thought they were willing to cooperate.

"We don't know if the _Ilya Murometz_ actually had missiles on board originally," Steve said, "but we figure nobody would bother to cut open the _second_ compartment if there were nothing in the first."

Bocharov nodded slowly. "I will have to inform my superiors of this," he said.

"What about us?" Pym wanted to know.

"You are our guests," Bocharov said firmly. "Naturally our first priority is to return you to your own country. We'll be heading in the direction of Alaska – once we're there, we'll contact the local authorities and arrange to put you ashore. Until we do, let's get you settled on board. I'm afraid all we have to offer is crew quarters."

"It'll do," said Steve.

They were shown to a bunk room deep inside the ship, where the floor and walls vibrated constantly with the sound of the engines. It was very sparse, with the three metal bunks only a couple of feet away from each other and no other furniture, and even colder than the mess hall, but the group was in no position to argue. They thanked the Russian sailors, and once the men had gone, Fyodorova immediately stood up and pulled a packet of gum out of her jacket.

"Here." She handed it out. "Everybody chew."

"Is it poison?" Tony asked suspiciously.

"No. It's juicy fruit," said Fyodorova. She stuck a piece in her own mouth and chewed it, then took it out and divided it in two, sticking one wad over each of two screws in the bedstead. "Anything with a Robertson head is probably a microphone. Plug 'em up, boys."

Covering the potential bugs consumed approximately the next twenty minutes, which went by in loud, wet chewing and careful inspection of every single screw in the room. When they were sure they had them all, and Fyodorova had run out of gum, they sat down to talk.

"What happened to the _Sinbad_?" asked Pym.

Tony made a motion with his hands like something blowing up.

"Fire in the engine room," said Fyodorova. "It spread so quickly I expect there was an accelerant involved, but of course nobody can prove that now that the evidence is at the bottom of the ocean. The Admiral graciously helped to evacuate everybody."

"Nice of him," said Steve. "What's he going to do with us?"

"I'm not sure yet," Fyodorova said. "I did try to get a look at their cargo while you guys were still down the bottom, but they've got guards on it."

"Should we call for help?" Tony asked, twisting his fake MIT ring.

Steve glanced down at his watch. They did all still have the homing beacons Peggy had issued to them. All they had to do was activate one, and SHIELD would come to pick them up. He turned to Pym and Fury, silently seeking their advice.

"Bocharov has hostages," Fury reminded him. "They'll be expecting to rescue the five of us, not a dozen people from the _Sinbad_."

That was true, and the beacons didn't have any means of encoding additional information, so there was no way to let anybody else know that. Besides, Bocharov himself was clearly up to something, and Fyodorova thought it was something that involved the Winter Soldier.

"Not yet," Steve decided. "I think there might be more to learn here. If I change my mind, you'll know," he promised Tony.

Tony nodded. He trusted Steve. It was nice that _somebody_ did.

Steve looked at Fyodorova. "I know you were listening while I told Bocharov what happened to us," he said. "What did Alexei have to say before that?"

"Well, first he asked if he were going to be shot," said Fyodorova.

"What?" Steve was shocked. "Why would he be shot?"

"He thought he would be executed for being a coward," Fyodorova explained. "He could have gotten up to fight with the others, but he stayed hidden. Bocharov pointed out that staying hidden was what had kept him alive, and that since he was alive he could tell them what had happened and who was threatening the Motherland. That makes him a hero, not a coward."

"Bocharov seems like a decent guy when he's not sinking ships," Fury observed with a scowl.

"Based on some of the things they said to each other, I'm pretty sure Bocharov is a friend of Alexei's father," Fyodorova added. "He promised repeatedly to take him home as soon as he can."

So whatever else happened, Alexei was probably going to be okay. That was good. "What else did they say?" Steve asked.

Fyodorova shut her eyes a moment as she arranged her thoughts, and then began repeating Alexei's story. According to what he'd told Bocharov, the _Ilya Murometz_ had surfaced in the bay near Yanranay and sent a boat ashore, where the sailors had found evidence of recent habitation in what should have been an abandoned city. The submarine had therefore headed north, following a swath of thinner ice that looked like it could be the result of re-freezing after an icebreaker had passed through. On a stop at the surface they'd seen the blue aurora and somebody had mentioned that the Yakut believed it to be a bad omen, but this was dismissed as superstition.

"They were still cautious," Fyodorova said, "but that would be pretty normal for a mission like that. It's not unheard of for the navy or air force to be sent somewhere without knowing what they were supposed to find when they got there."

"Sounds like SHIELD," Steve muttered.

Trouble had begun in the middle of a morning shift – the men were suddenly called to battle stations as an unknown vessel appeared on the sonar. At first, the captain had assumed it was a British or American submarine checking up on them, but its signature didn't exactly match any sub the crew knew of, and it was mysteriously silent. Nuclear submarines like the _Ilya Murometz_ had a low-speed mode in which they produced very little propeller noise, but this one had been coming in _fast_ and yet not making a sound.

The man in charge of the missiles at that time had been Alexei's father, Lieutenant Iakov Kolesnikov. He'd urged his son to keep out of the way, pushing him into the closet where they kept the firefighting equipment – that was where he'd been hiding when the torpedo hit. The sub stopped dead in the water with a loud metallic boom and a horrible lurch, and darkness and silence had fallen as the power flickered and died. Alexei had heard screams echoing through the structure and had called for his father, who'd told him to stay where he was.

Then he'd heard gunfire. While Alexei continued to cower in his hiding place, the other men had armed themselves and settled around the door, waiting. Kolesnikov reminded everybody of what they were and were not allowed to shoot: the missiles must not be damaged, nor the hull, or they were all likely to die. One woman had wondered how the enemy had managed to board, but Kolesnikov had shushed her.

The hatch creaked open. Alexei had said that everyone tensed, preparing for a gunfight, but instead a greenish gas had flooded into the room, billowing low along the floors and dribbling off the catwalks like a liquid. Since he'd been inside the firefighting closet, Alexei had been able to grab an oxygen mask. Nobody else had a chance. They'd all died twitching and vomiting blood, while the boy sat alone and terrified in his hiding place. He could have gone to help them and he didn't. He could have gotten up to fight, and he didn't. He simply hid, and listened to his crewmates die.

Steve shivered. No wonder the kid had feared being called a coward. Was there any way to convince him that the problem lay not with Alexei Kolesnikov, but with the people who'd told this terrified child that he needed to be a soldier?

"Bocharov repeated that he was not a coward," said Fyodorova. "I don't think he believed him."

Alexei had waited while the gas dissipated a bit, not daring to move – he confessed that he'd pissed on the floor because he'd been too frightened to get up and find a toilet. Finally, there'd been the sound of footsteps and he'd peeked out of the closet, heart pounding, to see three people entering the room. They were wearing masks over their faces. Two were dressed in black with a red logo embroidered on the shoulders of their uniforms – a skull and tentacles. The third and tallest was in dark green, with the logo in gold and silver. When this figure spoke, Alexei realized it was a woman. The other two deferred to her as if she were in charge. They spoke a language he thought might have been English, but wasn't sure, since he only knew a couple of words of it himself.

As this small group spread out to look around the room, it had turned out that one of the bodies on the floor was still alive. Alexei's father had grabbed the woman's boot – she'd turned to stamp on his face, breaking his nose, and then drew a sword and stabbed him twice in the gut. Alexei shrank back into his hiding place and didn't dare to look out again. He had only listened as the group inspected the missile tubes. They couldn't fire the missiles with no power, but they'd done _something_ , and had repeatedly used a word he recognized: _Morozko_.

"What's _Morozko_?" asked Steve. The word sounded Russian, but he didn't recognize it.

"It's a fairy tale," said Fyodorova. " _Morozko_ is... _Father Frost_ , I think, is the usual translation. He's a winter spirit."

"It's also an island," Fury said. "It's the Russian name for Gunnysack Island, north of Alaska. There used to be a radar station there, but it was abandoned in the 1960s because it was too difficult to supply."

"If I recall correctly, we never actually settled on who _owned_ the place, either," said Fyodorova.

"It's probably not worth owning," said Pym.

"Did he say what was _on_ Morozko?" asked Fury.

"No," said Fyodorova. "Like I said, he wasn't even sure they were speaking English."

Alexei's story ended with the men in black and the woman in green leaving, so that the single survivor was again alone in the dark with a lot of dead bodies. He'd heard noises inside the missile tubes, but nothing that sounded like a launch. That had gone on for a while before silence had fallen again, and Alexei had come to the horrible realization that he was now completely alone. If anybody else had been alive on the _Ilya Murometz_ , they would have come looking for other survivors. He'd had no idea how long he was down there, wondering whether thirst, starvation, cold, or lack of air would get to him first – but then the Americans had arrived.

"That was where he stopped," Fyodorova said. "Bocharov told him again that they were going to take him home, and ordered somebody to put him in the captain's cabin." She looked Steve in the eyes. "Now it's your turn – what did you _not_ tell Bocharov?"

Steve almost protested that he hadn't left out anything she didn't already know, but then he realized there _was_ one more thing he'd quietly failed to mention. It hadn't even been a conscious decision, the way not talking about the _Camponotus_ or the tesseract had been. Apparently without even thinking about it, he'd decided not to tell Bocharov about the device he'd taken off the tip of the torpedo.

Now he pulled it out. "Tony," he said – the youngest member of their team had gotten bored with Alexei's story and was now lying on his back on one of the bunks, playing with his beacon ring. When Steve called his name, he sat up.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Take a look at this." Steve offered him the item.

Tony reached out and took it from Steve as if afraid it were going to explode, which Steve supposed was not unreasonable. He weighed the mysterious object in his hands and ran his fingers over the silver surface, taking note of how it was put together and the wires and cables that ran in one end. "You think this is what they're using to create the time distortions?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Steve. "What can you tell me about it?"

"From here, not much." Tony looked around. "Anybody got a screwdriver?"

Pym took a set of small ones, the kind used for watches and eyeglasses, out of his pocket, and Tony knelt on the floor to use the bed itself as a table where he could spread things out. He removed one end of the device and very carefully slid the shell off the insides. It turned out to contain a couple of half-melted circuit boards, and a complicated arrangement of lenses and mirrors, all of it blackened by intense heat. Steve wouldn't have had the faintest idea of what it was supposed to do, even if it had been whole and new, but Tony smiled triumphantly.

"I knew it!" he said.

"What is it?" asked Steve.

"It's exactly what I described to you," said Tony. "High energy lasers to pry open a hole in the Calabi-Yau manifold... except it can't possibly get anything out. The space in here," he inserted a finger between two of the mirrors, "isn't nearly wide enough for anything to go through. Instead, all the energy goes into maintaining the focus on one particular moment in time so it can read what's there. Why didn't I think of that?" he asked. "It's so obvious! I mean, it still requires way more energy than anybody could realistically generate, but it's _way_ more efficient than what I had in mind."

"Hold up, hold up, you lost me," said Steve. "What does it do, if it doesn't pull things out of other times?"

"Well, it..." Tony began, but Fyodorova reached over and shushed him as an announcement came over the ship's PA. Steve didn't understand much of it, but he recognized the word from Alexei Kolesnikov's story: _Morozko_. The sound of the ship's engines changed. They were turning.

"Are we going to the island?" he asked.

"Sounds that way," said Fyodorova. "And no – he did not say what we're going to do when we get there."

"How long will it take to get there?" Pym wanted to know.

"Well, I had to do my position calculations in my head," Fyodorova said with a shrug, "so I'm not sure they're accurate, but assuming they are, around fifteen hours."

"Then we have that long to plan," Steve said.

"You have no idea what's up there," warned Fyodorova.

Fury snorted. "Like that makes any difference to the man who thought stealing a space shuttle was a good idea."

"We know at least one thing that's up there," said Steve. "A high-tech submarine and two nuclear missiles. So we need to think about that."

The _Sadko_ chugged on through the arctic night. Besides the sound of the engines, Steve could hear people moving around in the hallway, some of them holding conversations in muffled Russian. There was the grinding of ice whenever they moved through a patch that was not open sea, and occasional thumps or scuffles of unknown origin. And once there was a deep buzzing noise that seemed to vibrate the entire ship for a minute or so before dying away. Steve might have thought he'd imagined it, but when he looked around at the others, he saw acknowledgement in their faces.

Despite Fyodorova's earlier reassurances, he kept his eyes on the door of their little room. There was no telling whether the Winter Soldier might come barging in at any moment, and he wanted to be ready to react if he did.

"Why is the island called Gunnysack?" Tony asked at one point. He was going through more calculations in a tiny notebook he'd brought with them, having to constantly flip back and forth through the pages. Pym had offered him help several times, but Tony had always refused it.

Fyodorova was lying on her back on the top bunk, hands folded across her midsection, staring at the ceiling. "It's a corruption of _kunuls'ák_ ," she replied, without sitting up. "I think it means _squirrel_."

"Cool." Tony returned to his calculations.

"How's it going?" Steve was sitting across from Tony, and could occasionally catch a glimpse of his scribbles. There were diagrams of twisted grids and a lot of math, as well as single-word margin notes that meant nothing to him.

Tony looked back over his previous page and bit his lip. "Well, according to Einstein, matter is equal to energy times the speed of light squared, so if you've got enough energy, you can create matter. I'm almost sure that's what's going on here. The device reads what was there in the past and reconstructs it in the present, using the energy of the tesseract. We know the bad guys 'milked' it for energy during the war, so I figure they've got some stored up, and they're using it to power this machine."

"Which lets them get _more_ tesseract energy out of the past?" asked Steve.

"I dunno," said Tony. "What I _do_ know is that the effects _we_ see are what happens when the wormhole closes. Wormholes are pretty unstable," he explained. "The quantum forces tend to make them wander off, especially in time. This thing uses an electromagnetic bubble to keep the wormhole on target, but when the power runs out, the bubble 'pops' just half a second before the wormhole actually collapses. So the other end of the hole wanders off, the last trickle of energy over-writes the present with the past, and we end up with volcanoes and dinosaurs instead of whatever moment in time they were originally trying to reach."

"They probably don't like that," Fury observed. "It makes it pretty hard to work in secret."

"But a very creative weapon if they put it in the right spot," said Fyodorova.

That was the moment when Steve had a revelation. Suddenly he knew _exactly_ what HYDRA was trying to do. "Or maybe what they're after is so important that they don't _care_ ," he said. "What if they're not draining energy? What if they want the tesseract _itself_?"

It made perfect sense, he thought. What other reason could they have for reconstructing the past in places where the tesseract was known to have been? They could write off the risk of discovery because the reward of success was so great that it didn't matter.

Tony glanced down at his notes again. "I'm... not sure that would work. I mean... the tesseract is supposed to be a unique object. Dad's math suggested that you can't have two of them in the universe at the same time. This thing..." he tapped the metal sheath of the object with the end of his pencil, "doesn't actually move anything _through_ time, it just copies it. If you try to copy something like the tesseract..." he frowned. "I dunno. Can infinite energy copy itself? It doesn't sound right but infinities don't always follow logical rules..."

"Maybe they figure it's worth trying," said Fury.

"If that's what they're trying, they've tried it twice," Fyodorova spoke up. She rolled over to lean off the end of the bed and talk to the others. "Now they've used it as a weapon to steal two nuclear missiles. What do they want with those?"

"I'd say," Pym said sarcastically, "that they're hoping to blow something up."

"Obviously," Fyodorova agreed. "But what?"

"If they attack either the US or the USSR, they'll start a nuclear war," said Fury. "They can't rule the world if there's no world left to rule."

Tony sat up a little straighter. "The tesseract itself is indestructible," he said, "but the stuff _around_ it's not! If they can find where it's hidden and nuke _that_ , it'll survive even though nothing else will, and they can just go in there and get it because everybody for miles around will either be dead or running away from the radiation!"

A shiver went down Steve's spine. "And we'll assume it's a nuclear strike by the Soviet Union, and try to retaliate..."

"While HYDRA sits secure on their island in the arctic, and waits it out," said Fyodorova with a nod. "Do any of you know where the tesseract is?"

Fury shook his head.

"I never even asked," said Pym.

Steve shrugged. "Nobody knows, except Peggy." But was he _confident_ of that? He wasn't sure. Peggy didn't trust _him_ , but maybe she trusted somebody else. All it would take was one slip. "Okay," he said. "So when we reach the island, we have two aims. One is to find and disarm those two missiles. Can anybody here do that?"

"I can," Pym said. "Although I'd have to improvise a little with a Soviet system. They may not use the layouts I'm familiar with."

"No need. I know them," said Fyodorova. "If you can do your shrinking thing and get inside, I'll talk you through the rest. And you know I won't betray you and set it off," she added, looking at Steve, "because I don't want a nuclear war any more than you do."

"What's the other thing?" asked Fury.

"The other thing will be Tony's job," said Steve. "We need to know for sure what they do and do not know about the tesseract, and whether that's what they've been trying to get with their time manipulation. If that turns out to be based at Gunnysack Island, too, Tony will be the guy to figure it out."

"I can do that," said Tony, as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

"So how do we get off this boat and onto the island?" asked Fury.

Steve looked around the tiny room they were in. How indeed, when the Russians probably didn't want them there, and the Winter Soldier might be lurking outside? "I'll have to think about that," he said.


	17. Chapter 17: Gunnysack Island

A few hours later, they got another surprise. An announcement came over the _Sadko_ 's PA system, in English.

"If our American friends would be so good as to join me on the bridge," said Bocharov. "I believe we have been presented another opportunity for international cooperation."

Steve had been deep in thought, seated on one of the bunks with his hands in his lap, while Fury lay in the bed above him, either sleeping or pretending to sleep. Tony was still working on figuring out exactly what was under the layers of melted metal and burned plastic in the interior of the time travel device, while Fyodorova held tools and made suggestions for him, and Pym paced restlessly up and down the room with a deep scowl on his face. All five of them looked up in startlement when they heard Bocharov's voice.

Fury rolled to the edge of his bunk and looked down at the others. "What do we do?" he asked.

He was looking at Steve. Steve was, after all, in charge. The outcome of this mission was in his hands – and so, he was uncomfortably aware, were the lives of all the people in this room. He licked his lips, then quickly pressed them together to warm them as the saliva cooled in the icy air.

"Let's go see what they want," he decided, getting to his feet. "If worst comes to worst, we can call for help."

They walked up to the bridge in silence. Steve noticed that Tony was twisting the fake MIT ring on his finger. When the boy realized Steve was watching, he quickly shoved his hands in his pockets.

It was technically early in the morning now, but the sky overhead was inky-black and cloudy. A few flakes of snow were falling, seeming to appear and disappear as they danced in and out of the area illuminated by the _Sadko_ 's lights. Beyond that bright halo there was only darkness, as if the ship were floating in a void.

Bocharov was waiting for them at the bridge entrance. "My friends," he said. "Are any of you familiar with the island called _Morozko_? I believe your people call it _Gunnysack_."

Were they still pretending they were from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? Pym must have thought so, because he kept up his role and stepped forward to answer the question. "Former US radar base. Contested ownership. Too cold and remote to bother maintaining," he said, summing up their entire earlier conversation in three sentence fragments.

"Something Alexei said makes me think the stolen missiles may have been taken there," Bocharov explained. "Again, we do not have the capacity to disarm and dispose of them if they are found, but you said _you_ did."

It was already cold, but this statement gave Steve an additional chill. So _that_ was what Bocharov was planning to do with them – dump them on an arctic island possibly inhabited by HYDRA, and leave. Steve could cope with that and was pretty sure the others could, too... but what about the crew of the _Sinbad_? Would they be marooned, too? The SHIELD group could call for rescue, but not for everybody. Then again, at least on the island they would no longer be surrounded by Soviet sailors with guns. Steve could call SHIELD, and find a place for Captain Willard and her people to hide while he arranged for somebody else to pick them up.

He glanced at Pym, to see if the other man were thinking the same thing, and was answered with a barely-perceptible nod.

"We do," said Pym. "Have you got a map of the island?"

"Over here," Bocharov said.

He led them to a table at the back of the bridge, where somebody had unrolled a paper map, weighting the corners with whatever was lying around. All the labels were of course in Russian, but the map was recognizable as a polar projection of the Arctic Ocean, marking the locations of hundreds of tiny islands scattered in the Bering Sea. Bocharov put his finger down next to one particular one, which the map called _МОРОЗКО_. It was a roughly pear-shaped speck of land, no more than three miles long, with the fat end of the pear pointing north.

"Shortly after the war, we established our own base on Morozko, but abandoned it in the early 1950s," Bocharov explained. "I think the Americans took over some of our old buildings when they moved in. The base was here, at the eastern end. I am told the men used to joke that the weather was better there." He looked up, smiling, as if he expected his guests to chuckle. None of them did, so Bocharov continued. "The real reason is because the east is the only place where there is a beach instead of cliffs. The entire island slopes upwards to the west, with a sheer drop at this end and around the peninsula at the south." His finger traced out a line as if the island on the map were much bigger than the actual half-inch it occupied. "We once planned to dig missile silos into the bedrock, but the project was abandoned before it was more than a couple of holes in the ground."

That was likely to be where HYDRA would store their stolen nukes, then. But why was Bocharov telling them this? Did he actually plan to have Steve and the others disarm the missiles for him? That needn't be at odds with abandoning them there, of course. Bocharov could leave them and sail off while they were underground.

"Is there anything else you will need?" Bocharov asked. "You seem well-equipped, but you must have lost some things with the sinking of the _Sinbad_."

"We'll discuss the situation and let you know," Pym replied. "Hypothetically, what if we decide we're not fit to participate? We've suffered several setbacks and I don't think any of us are in peak condition."

Bocharov looked him evenly in the face. "That would be unfortunate," he said.

Steve cleared his throat. "Just out of curiosity, Admiral," he said. "Do you have any idea what we might _find_ on this island?"

Only a second or two went by in silence before Bocharov responded, but that was an awfully long time to somebody waiting for an answer. It was certainly enough time for Steve to be sure that whatever the Admiral would say at the end of it was definitely a lie. Nobody spent that long thinking about it and then simply told the truth.

"I don't know," was the eventual reply. "We must be ready for anything."

" _Zemlya vperedi_!" a sailor shouted from across the room. _Land ho_.

Everyone turned to look out the front windows. At first there was nothing to see – the lit inside of the ship made for such a contrast with the dark, all that was visible was blackness. Then, at a command from Bocharov, someone turned out the _Sadko_ 's lights. It took a moment for Steve's eyes to adjust, but as they did, he began to make out a faint glow up ahead. It was steady and tinted orange, almost like a sunrise, and it seemed to outline a low hump that rose to the right.

"There is the island,"said Bocharov.

A couple of lights came back on, but only as many as were absolutely necessary. From here they would be running dark, so as not to get HYDRA's attention. Steve went out on the deck for a better look. The air outside was more bitter than ever, and the aurora was actually _behind_ them now, flickering across the sky to the south. That was a strange thing to think about... as if they'd gone off the edge of the world.

The surface of the sea was a maze of shattered ice, many of the chunks here larger than the _Sadko_. A few dark-bodied seals were resting on some of them, turning their slim dog-like heads to watch the ship go by. Up ahead, the light on the island was still visible, and in his mind Steve went back over the limited information Bocharov had provided. Old radar base at the east end, possible missile silos at the west, cliffs around almost the whole thing... Peggy had always chided him for rushing in without proper reconnaissance. He needed every scrap.

"They won't be at the east end," Fury muttered, joining Steve at the railing. "Not if there's a beach there. Can't bring a submarine into shallow water."

"It didn't look like there was a natural harbour," Steve remembered. "At least, not one visible on that map. So they'd have to build a breakwater, or maybe use an underwater cave." He considered their options. "If we're sure the beach is where they _aren't_ , then that's where we should land. From there we can just head for the lights."

Fyodorova leaned on the railing to Steve's right. "That'll be a long walk in the cold," she murmured, but she wasn't complaining. She'd taken long walks in the cold before.

"Then we'll have to walk fast and keep warm," he told her.

Steve took a deep breath and let it out in a cloud of steam – he could remember the winters of his childhood, when he and Bucky would breathe out mist in the cold and pretend they were dragons. He looked around to see if any of the Soviets were paying attention to them, but none seemed to be,so he lowered his head and his voice and asked, "so what's Bocharov's deal?"

"Be more specific," said Fyodorova.

"I can't," Steve said. "He's obviously up to _something_ , but is it bad for us, or not?"

"I don't think he really cares what happens to us," said Fyodorova. "If he sank the _Sinbad_ he did it because he didn't want to be stopped or reported at whatever he's doing, but now that's done, we're irrelevant. We may be useful in deactivating the missiles, but I think all he _really_ wants is us to be out of the way."

"Hence getting us to the island, where he can leave us behind," said Steve.

"Probably," Fyodorova agreed. She glanced over her shoulder, then back at Steve and Fury. "Do you want to take over the ship?"

That _had_ occurred to Steve, and they probably could if they wanted to. Besides Pym's technology and Steve's own enhanced abilities, they had Fury and Fyodorova who were both highly trained fighters, and Tony who could figure out how just about anything worked. The crew of the _Sinbad_ would probably be happy to join in. If they overpowered the Soviets and took control of the _Sadko_ , they'd be able to find out whether the Winter Soldier was on board, but they'd also have to call off any investigation of Gunnysack Island. Once they'd seized the ship by force, they'd have to _keep_ it by force.

"Let's check out the island, first," Steve said. "We can all stay together that way, and not make a tense situation worse. We'll keep mutiny in reserve for now."

"It's not mutiny," Fury said. "Mutiny is when we overthrow our _own_ commander. Overthrowing somebody else's is _piracy_."

Steve had to smile a little at that. "My mistake," he said.

The _Sadko_ dropped anchor a couple of miles from the island, among floating towers of ice that would help to camouflage the ship if they didn't crush it. Bocharov offered the Americans use of a dinghy.

"If you need it, of course," he said. "If you can make your own arrangements, please do."

Steve suspected that if they 'made their own arrangements' they would be watched like hawks to see what they were doing and how. Pym must have, too, because he smiled politely and said, "the dinghy should be all we need."

Although Steve had been mentally preparing a list of reasons why his group needed to stay together all in the same boat, and had been ready to argue for them if need be, the Soviets made no attempt to split them up or even to accompany them. Steve wondered what would happen if he asked for additional men, but decided not to try it. Bocharov probably wanted him to see this as an opportunity to escape. They were going to _have_ to come back, though, because the crew of the _Sinbad_ were still on board the Soviet ship. As they lowered the dinghy into the waves, Steve could see Captain Willard at the edge of the deck, watching him.

Maybe he should have refused to go, or left somebody – Fury maybe, or Fyodorova – on the _Sadko_ to make sure the other Americans were okay. Too late now.

After a long, slow journey through the ever-shifting labyrinth of ice, Steve felt his oar touch the ocean bottom. He motioned to Fury, and the two of them climbed out to drag the little boat up onto the beach. The land here was smooth white sand with waves washing up on it, and had it been in the tropics it would probably have been a tourist spot. Here however, Steve's breath froze on the fur edging of his hood and the icy water bit right through his boots until his toes went numb. He wondered if it were possible for him to get frostbite.

Once on dry land, Fyodorova, Pym, and Tony climbed out and they all helped in towing the boat higher up the beach to where the tide couldn't carry it away. They lit a couple of lanterns, and found an old sign – its paint had faded away in the long arctic summers when the sun never set, but its shape was that of an arrow, directing them to a gravel path that led into the island's interior. There was no snow on the island, and the ground was bare rock, but the wind sliced through layers of warm clothing to chill the flesh beneath. A thin fog clung to everything, ghostly white in the light of their lanterns.

They'd gone perhaps half a mile when Steve paused. He couldn't have said why – he just suddenly had a eerie feeling, as if somebody were watching them. When he looked around he didn't see anybody, but there were plenty of places to hide among the crooked rocks. Everybody else stopped walking, too, and for a moment there was perfect silence.

Except for a single far-away crunch, like a footstep on gravel.

"Did you guys hear that?" asked Steve.

A moment later, there was another sound, this one much closer. Steve's head jerked up, and in the light of his lantern he just barely made out a few rocks tumbling down a slope. A fluttering shape revealed the cause – they'd been dislodged when a gull took off.

Steve breathed out, but he remained wary. Nobody said a word, and everyone took much more care about where they put their feet, as they continued up the path.

The orange glow, similar to that of sodium vapor streetlights, was still visible ahead of them. It grew slowly brighter as they climbed towards the low mountain peak on the island's north end, until they crested a hill and found themselves looking down into a valley.

On the slope below them was a line of radar dishes. Most of these had fallen into disrepair, but a few were still standing, probably to warn of aircraft passing overhead. Below them, nestled at the foot of a cliff, were a few small buildings. It didn't look like an important outpost, but perhaps the majority of it was hidden underground.

There was no fence. As far as Steve could see, there weren't even any guards. Maybe HYDRA didn't think anybody would bother them way up here in the cold. Or maybe, as had often been true during the war, they had other ways of making sure nobody got in.

"All right," he said, turning to his companions. "We know where we're going. Now we have to figure out how to get there."

"Ventilation," Pym said immediately. "If the bulk of the base is underground, they'll need to refresh the air somehow."

"Good." Steve nodded. "Let's find it."

On a drier day this might have been an easy task, as the mist condensing in the warmer air would have stood out in the empty landscape, but the fog complicated things. They were picking their way among the rocks at the base of the dishes when Fyodorova suddenly stopped.

"Warm breeze," she said, and pulled one of her mittens off. Turning in a circle with her hand outstretched, she found the direction it was coming from – and descending about fifty feet further down the slope, they found the vent. It was deep in a narrow crack in the rock. They could climb down to it, but then they would have to get through a thick metal grate with openings no more than an inch square, bolted in place from the inside.

"This looks like a job for Ant-Man," said Pym, without a trace of humour in his voice. He closed his helmet, slid down into the crack, and vanished, leaving his empty winter clothes behind.

The rest of the party waited, shivering in the cold. The air rising out of the vent was relatively warmer, but not enough to keep their teeth from chattering.

The windshield of the _Valkyrie_ flashed before Steve's eyes as he squinted down into the dark. He shook it away. He hadn't had a debilitating flashback yet on this mission, and he was not going to have one now.

Pym rematerialized beneath the grate, wedged between it and the support structure for the large fan underneath. The grate itself was almost entirely covered by his discarded clothing, making it difficult to see what he was doing, but there were soft metallic sounds of work being done, and finally a square of the grate moved up and aside, leaving a hole big enough for a human being to squirm through. Pym looked up at them and gave a thumbs up.

Fury went first, and worked on stopping the fan and hanging a rope and harness below it while the others climbed down the slope to the grate, one by one. The actual ventilation shaft was about eight feet across and could accommodate all of them, although not comfortably, and even with the fan stopped a warm breeze was still flowing up. Then they had to sit there and wait again, while Fury put the harness on and slid down the rope into the base itself. A few more long, cold, anxious minutes passed in the dark, and then the rope jerked twice. Fury was telling them the coast was clear.

Steve climbed down next. At the bottom the shaft made a gentle turn, and opened horizontally onto a service tunnel of some sort, with narrow train tracks running along the gravelly bottom. Fury was crouched there, removing another grating.

"Is this still active?" asked Steve, peering out at the tracks.

"Nobody's been along yet," said Fury, speaking around the screwdriver he was holding in his teeth, "but we won't have a lot of time if they come."

Steve got to work helping him with the grate. "This place must be bigger than it looks if they need this."

"Or at least better-funded," Fury agreed. He handed Steve the screwdriver. "You know, the Nazis stole artworks and precious metals from all over Europe."

"I did know," Steve said. "Let me guess, most of it was never found." He wasn't surprised.

"I wouldn't say _most_ of it. But a _lot_ of it, yeah," Fury agreed.

Fyodorova arrived, then Tony, with Pym bringing up the rear. They climbed out of the vent and down into the tunnel, then put the grate back in its place, at a slight angle so they could wedge it in without having to replace the screws, which Fury kept in his pocket. Steve hoped they'd be able to find their way out again.

"Train!" hissed Tony.

Steve had expected to hear a sound or feel a vibration if one came, and there'd been neither, but when he looked he saw a light visible further up the tunnel, and getting brighter. "Everybody down!" he ordered.

They extinguished their lanterns and all lay down flat on the concrete maintenance walkway beside the tracks, where they stayed, hardly daring to breathe, as the train went by. It wasn't very fast but it was almost entirely silent, with no smell of fuel associated with it. It must be electric, Steve thought, getting its power from the rails like the New York City subways did. It was also very short, only two cars – the first was a passenger car, the second an open platform with cargo strapped to it.

The cargo was the top half of a missile, with Cyrillic writing on the side.

Once the train had vanished back into the dark again, Steve counted to ten and then got up. Without the lanterns, the tunnel was dark indeed – but Fyodorova quickly got hers lit again, and held it up so they could see each other to talk.

"Priority is the missiles," Steve said. "Pym, Fury, Fyodorova, follow that train and see if you can do anything about whatever's at its destination. Tony and I will go see where it came from."

"Got it," said Fury.

"Don't take unnecessary risks. When you've done all you feel you can safely do, come back here and climb out," Steve added. "We'll all meet back up on the mountain. We don't want to be waiting around doing nothing in here. If somebody gets lost or captured, don't waste time trying to rescue them." That would be Steve's own job. He was in charge, and these lives were his responsibility.

The two groups parted ways – Steve and Tony went left. Steve could feel his stomach gurgling as he crept along, and thought longingly of the cabbage soup he'd eaten on the _Sadko_. After shivering in the cold for hours, his overactive metabolism was going to demand that he do nothing but eat once he got back to civilization. Tony, following behind, had his arms folded and his back slightly hunched, trying to make himself as small as possible so he would lose less heat.

"You know," Tony said, his soft voice echoing in the empty stone space, "when we went into space... I mean, that was dangerous, but we had the shuttle, right? If something went wrong, we could just land."

Tony still didn't understand just how dangerous that trip had been, Steve thought – but at least he was starting to understand _this_ one. He was starting to think of it as something other than a fun adventure. Steve wasn't sure if that were a good dose of reality for the kid, or a precursor to panic.

They started to head up a slope. At the top, Steve could see a faint light coming in, so he extinguished the lantern and set it aside. The hum of machinery could now be heard in the air and felt in the concrete. Steve dropped to all fours and motioned that Tony should stay back while he crawled up to the top for a look.

He was not surprised to find the train station there, but it was not the enclosed room Steve had expected. Instead, the tracks came to an end along the side of an enormous cave, part of which appeared to be natural but the rest had been either cut into the rock or built up with concrete. An enormous pontoon barge, able to travel over water or sheet ice, had been tied at a dock below, and men and cranes were busy removing the _Ilya Murometz_ ' second missile from it. Elsewhere in the cavern were other vehicles – icebreaking ships, a row of snowmobiles, and even a small submarine at the end of a long dock.

Steve felt something move and realized that despite his instructions, Tony had come to join him. When Steve looked, he found the boy's face white as a sheet – neither of them had expected anything this big. In space it had just been the four of them, Steve, Tony, Fury, and Bhavana, against Schmidt. Here there were also Fyodorova and Pym, but they had far more enemies. Dozens at least. Possibly hundreds.

During the war Steve would have happily taken on the entire base, with the commandos behind him. He couldn't do that with Tony here – and now he found himself wondering if that were the whole reason Peggy had allowed him to bring the kid along.

"The others will take care of the missiles," he assured Tony. "Our job is recon, remember? We have to find where they're working on their time machine, and any clues to tell us for sure what they think they're trying to do."

"Yeah," said Tony, with a nervous nod. "And not get killed while we're at it."

"Not getting killed is a great idea," Steve agreed.

The operatives' attention was focused for now on the delicate process of moving the missile, so it wasn't hard to slip out of the tunnel and slide down the side of the embankment that kept the harbour from flooding with the tides. From there, a maintenance walk, slippery with ice, led around to the other side, where the icebreakers were moored. Those must be the ones that brought in the supplies Fyodorova had seen being loaded in Yanranay. Two sets of metal doors above would be how the cargos were brought into the base proper. Nobody was working in that area right now, and a couple of men who were probably _supposed_ to be guarding it were watching the missile.

There were anti-aircraft guns on either side of the cavern entrance, Steve noticed – these were each manned by both a gunner and an observer with binoculars. HYDRA was expecting retaliation for the theft, but they thought it would come by air. They were expecting the Soviets to try to bomb them. They hadn't expected the tiny _Sadko_ , waiting at a distance while a few Americans did the dirty work.

One of the doors was open, but only partway. Steve stood guard while Tony crawled under it, and then followed, himself. While the walls and floor of the harbour cavern were fairly rough, the hallway beyond was far more finished, with linoleum and cinder block walls that made it look like it could have been part of a public school, albeit one that currently had no students and was being used to store a lot of junk. The walls had bicycles and golf carts parked along them, and further down there were piled boxes, metal cabinets, and even stacks of furniture.

A few doors led off this hallway in both directions, leading mostly to small offices and archive rooms. Steve didn't know what he'd expected the place where HYDRA manufactured time machines to _look_ like, but it turned out to be the last door before the hallway turned sharply left to a stairwell. This door was locked, but the sign on it said _LABOR_ , which seemed worth investigating. Tony picked the electronic lock, as he'd once done at NASA, and they crept inside.

Nobody appeared to be working at the moment, but it was clear that something very important happened here. On a workbench in the middle of the room was a partially assembled torpedo, very like the one Steve had seen on board the _Ilya Murometz_. Inside were spaces for several canisters of tesseract energy.

Peggy had told Steve she'd _found_ all HYDRA's stash of tesseract extract. Apparently she hadn't.

Tony walked backwards into the room, looking around furtively in expectation of attack. "Where _is_ everybody?" he whispered.

"Maybe they're all working on the missiles," Steve suggested. If that were true, Pym, Fury, and Fyodorova's job was going to be very difficult. "Or maybe it's night time." The arctic winter made 'day' and 'night' pretty meaningless, but people still had to sleep. He checked his watch, but it was still set to the local time in New York – who knew what time zone HYDRA used up here? Somebody might be back at any moment. "Look around fast," he told Tony. "You've got five minutes."

Tony didn't question it. He pulled something out of his jacket pocket and began looking around at the blueprints and half-finished wiring jobs. The object in his hand made a clicking sound.

"What's that?" asked Steve.

"Camera pen. It's Dad's," Tony replied. "Madame Director gave it to me. They're not putting this together," he added, taking pictures of the torpedo. "They're taking it apart."

"Why do you say that?" Steve came closer.

"You can see where stuff's been scraped getting it out." Tony pointed to a bit of verdigris on one of the clamps that would hold the canisters in. "And the wiring's been cut, here and here. Maybe they took an extra one to the submarine, just in case, and didn't use it. Now they're gonna do something else with it."

That made sense, but was also somewhat worrying. What _else_ was HYDRA planning to do with a small time machine now that they'd stolen two nuclear missiles?

"Careful. Don't move anything," Steve said.

"Yeah, yeah," said Tony.

There was a door one one side of the room with a glass panel in it, and a plaque that said _A. Keller_ – it seemed to lead into an office, but the room beyond was dark. Steve put a hand up to shade his eyes as he peeked through the glass, and made out a desk and some bookshelves. He was wondering if he ought to take a look in there when he heard the sound of footsteps in the office.

He grabbed Tony and pushed him to the floor behind the work bench, then crouched next to him and waited. The footsteps passed by in the hallway outside, apparently without noticing that the door was ajar. Steve sighed with relief.

"Okay. We have to go," he said.

"Right." Tony tucked the camera pen into his pocket. "I'm outta film, anyway."

Steve peeked out the door but saw nobody in the hallway, so he beckoned for Tony to follow him and then slipped out. He shut the door behind them – and an alarm immediately went off. Within moments, before there was any time to react, they were surrounded by soldiers.

"Get down on the floor! Down on the floor!" one ordered.

Tony obeyed. Steve did not. He stood up straight, hands raised and heart pounding, but eyes and brain hard at work. Steve could handle the soldiers, even with a couple of bullets in him. The problem would be getting out without letting them threaten or harm Tony.

Behind them, the door to the lab opened and shut, and Steve glanced back to see a middle-aged man with large eyeglasses and a bushy salt-and-pepper mustache emerge. "They've been in the lab looking around!" this man said accusingly. "For at _least_ ten minutes! The little one said he had a camera pen!"

Soldiers dragged the terrified Tony to his feet and found the pen. One of them snapped it in half.

"Why didn't you say something sooner?" another soldier demanded of the mustached man.

"I was sleeping in my office when they got in," the man complained. "They were between me and the door. If I tried anything, they could have killed me!"

The man who was evidently in charge of the squad rolled his eyes. "Fine, let's take them to Viper," he said.

Steve was cursing internally as he and Tony were marched up the stairs. _Why_ had he brought Tony along? He'd thought the kids knowledge and skills would be useful, but couldn't he have been useful at a safe distance? Their foray into space had given Steve an entirely misplaced confidence in Tony's ability to look after himself, and now here they were on a tiny island crawling with HYDRA and Howard Stark's son was going to die, and it was all Steve's fault. He had to get them out of here somehow. Why couldn't he have at least insisted Tony have a bullet-proof vest or _something_?

They climbed a flight of stairs, and were then escorted down a tiled hallway into an office. The men pushed Steve and Tony inside.

Tony stopped dead. "Holy _shit_ ," he said.

Steve might have told him to mind his language, but then he saw what Tony was looking at. Sitting at a desk, in front of a row of windows that looked down on the harbour, was a woman in her late thirties or early forties. She was dressed in a dark green HYDRA uniform with a gold and silver logo on the shoulder – almost certainly the woman Alexei Kolesnikov had seen on the _Ilya Murometz_. She had dark hair, green eyes, pronounced cheekbones, and a mole above her left eyebrow. The rest of the room didn't even register.

It was Eva Natter.


	18. Chapter 18: The Winter Soldier

TThe outside world came slowly back into focus. Eva's office was small and cramped, without windows. The furniture was very utilitarian, pipes were visible in the ceiling, the walls were covered with maps and printouts and hand-drawn notes and diagrams. Light was provided by a fluorescent fixture in the ceiling and the green glow of a computer monitor on the desk. The floor was bare linoleum. Even in the leader's private space, this was a bare-bones outpost, no luxuries for anybody. It was designed to be well-hidden, and every other possible consideration was secondary to that – just like the HYDRA bases Steve had invaded during the war.

He could work with that.

What he was _not_ yet sure he could work with was what was now staring him in the face. He knew in his gut that _this_ was the Eva he'd met and danced with at Bob Barnum's party in Oslo – the poised woman with the elegant laughter. Had he seen her even once since then, or had the woman who'd helped at the Wilson's charity dinner already been the double?

The woman at the desk rose to her feet. "Well," she said, "this is awkward, isn't it?"

"Ma'am." The leader of the soldiers stepped forward. "We found them snooping around in the _Zeitkonverter_ workshop. Dr. Keller raised the alarm. Late," he added, with a fierce look at the mustached scientist.

"But alive!" Dr. Keller insisted.

"Any others with them?" asked Eva.

"No," Steve said immediately. "It's just us two." Pym's shrinking tech could hopefully help hide Fury and Fyodorova until they'd gotten their job done, and maybe even to escape afterwards. There was room for three in the _Camponotus_... that just left the sailors from the _Sinbad_ , still on board the Russian icebreaker. Damn it, this was why Steve preferred to wrok with a few chosen people – so much less to keep track of!

Eva stepped out from behind her desk and approached Steve, studying his face carefully. Then she smiled softly. It was not at all the sort of smile he would have expected from a high-ranking HYDRA operative. "You're still not very good at lying, Captain Rogers," she observed.

"While you're _very_ good at it," he said evenly.

"I know," she nodded. "Based on your expression, I'm going to guess you didn't come here to see _me_. That's a shame. Tracking me down at the ends of the Earth would have been awfully romantic of you."

Tony, to this point, had merely been staring with his mouth open. Now he finally closed it, and looked at Steve with an expression that was almost awed. "Man, I _told_ you," he said. "You've _got_ to meet some women who aren't spies!"

"Shut up," Steve told him, and looked back at Eva, frowning. She looked like she was waiting for him to say something, but what the hell was he supposesd to _say_? This entire time he'd thought Eva Natter was a victim, a minor player who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now it turned out she was in charge of the problem he'd been chasing since the day he met her... and she was probably about to order him killed, like her predecessors had done half a dozen times before her.

The first question he thought of was, "who was the woman in the hospital?"

"Eva Natter," the woman in green replied. "She's exactly who she says she is – a German model. I helped her establish her career, she thinks spying is very exciting, and in return I borrow her identity and get an alibi when I need one."

"And a target when you need one of those," said Steve.

The woman lowered her head a bit. "She was a sweetheart. I liked her, too."

For some reason, _that_ was what broke through Steve's shock – suddenly, he was _angry_. How _dare_ she pretend to be sorry when she had probably sent Eva into the park _specifically_ to take a bullet for her? How _dare_ she act as if human lives were something that could be traded, one for another? If there'd been a window in the room, Steve would have thrown her out of it. As it was, he drew himself up to his full height and stepped towards her, not even knowing what he was going to do when he got there... but before he could decide, the soldiers grabbed his arms and forced him to his knees. The barrel of a gun poked into the back of his head.

Steve could have thrown them all off and broken Eva's neck with his bare hands anyway – but then he realized that another group had grabbed Tony and were also threatening _him_. Seeing that was like a splash of cold water. Steve Rogers had never given a damn about his _own_ life, but he could not risk that of Howard Stark's sixteen-year-old son.

For a moment nobody spoke. Tony looked over at Steve in terror, and Steve looked back evenly, trying to telepathically reassure the kid that he was going to get them out of this. Somehow. He had to.

"So who are _you_?" Steve asked.

The woman he'd thought was Eva Natter shrugged. "Does it matter? If you look me up at SHIELD you'll find me under the name _Viper_ – but I can't let you do that now that you know what I look like." She put her hands on her hips and looked at her prisoners, then sighed. "What am I going to do with you two? I have to admit, I wasn't expecting you to turn up here... we were worried the Russians were getting close, but all our sources told us SHIELD didn't even _know_ about this place."

"We talk to the Russians more than you think," said Steve. "A friend of mine there says, _the enemy of my enemy is a useful ally_. We've been watching you for a while." He hoped that sounded more convincing than his earlier lie. Maybe the fact that it was partially true would help.

"That makes me feel slightly less creepy for having Eva track you down in New York," she replied with a smile.

Steve hesitated. "Are you tryiing to _flirt_ with me?" he asked, clenching his fists as the violent, _how-dare-she_ rage threatened to flare up again.

"It's how I take the edge off uncomfortable situations," said Viper. "Like being rescued by a stranger asking me to dance whileBob Barnum squeezes my backside." She bit her lip as she thought, letting it slowly slide out from between her teeth. Steve couldn't tell if this were intended to be sexy or not, but the fact that he still found it so made him angrier still. "I can't keep you here," she went on, "but I'd hate to just shoot you. I guess I'd better turn you over to Zola, and let him see what he can get out of you."

"So Zola _is_ still alive," Steve said carefully.

"I have a hard time believing you knew about this place bud didn't know _that_ ," she observed. She took a black parka down from a hook on the wall and began putting it on. "Have you found any others?" she asked the man in charge of the squad of soldiers.

"We're searching," he replied. "We're still not sure how they got in."

"Doesn't matter now," Viper decided, doing up her zipper. "Fire up the incinerators and get the _Perlboot_ ready. If the Soviets are on the brink of finding this place, we have to go – and if SHIELD knows about it, we have to go _now_."

"Yes, Ma'am!" the man saluted.

"They're with me," Viper added, motioning to the others/ They dragged Steve and Tony roughly to their feet. "I'll give them to Zola personally. A Christmas present!"

* * *

There were many more people in the hallways now – Steve wondered if this were because of Viper's orders, or simply because they'd finished with the missiles and everyone was getting back to work now. Maybe it was even simpler than that. Steve's watch, on New York time, said it was eight o'clock in the morning. Maybe that was the time zone this island ran on during the endless Arctic night, and now it was time to get up.

Not that it mattered. Right now, as the two of them were being frog-marched out of Viper's office and down the stairs to the harbour, Steve knew his first pirority had to be Tony. Fury, Fyodorova, and Pym would be fine. They'd come into this knowing the risks, they all had special skills and training, and they could take care of himself. Tony was another story entirely. He was Steve's responsibility, and Steve had a nasty hunch he wouldn't be able to bargain for the boy's safety the way Fyodorova had for Natalia's.

That meant they were going to have to escape by force. They couldn't do it in a narrow hallway where more mooks might come pouring out at any moment – Steve would have to wait until they got out into the harbour cavern itself. There'd be more people working there, but also more room to move around and perhaps they could steal one of the smaller boats, or even a snowmobile. Anything to get them away from this place.

Of course, once they were out there was the question of where they would _go_. Steve knew better than to count on the _Sadko_ waiting for them. They were hundreds of miles from civilization, and the only living things they'd seen in the past twenty-four hours that weren't potential enemies were the seals.

The doors to the harbour were now rolled open all the way, and the soldiers escorted them through. Earlier, everybody in this space had been focused on the remaining missile from the _Ilya Murometz_. Now there was all kinds of activity. The pontoon sledge had vanished, and people were loading crates and vehicles onto ships. In another part of the cavern, things were being put into containers made of congrate, which were being readied with chains for the cranes to lift. Steve wondered at first if this were a way to transport radioactive material. Then he remembered that Viper had mentioned incinerators – HYDRA was moving out, and anything they could not take with them would be destroyed. The concrete must be for the stuff that couldn't be safely burned. It would simply be entombed and sunk into the ocean.

Their escorts took Steve and Tony past all this and out onto a long metal dock, where a little submarine was anchored. This was a much smaller, slimmer vessel than the huge, pot-belled _Ilya Murometz_ , and despite the HYDRA logo painted on its conning tower, Steve recognized it. This was a U-Boat, either something saved from the war or built to the same specifications. He'd been on one before, and knew how the interior was laid out. That could give him an advantage.

Under the HYDRA logo was the name _Perlboot_ – German for _Nautilus_. Was this the weirdly silent submarine that had attacked the _Ilya Murometz_?

Whether it was or not, it was a perfect way to transport prisoners. It was impossible to escape from a submarine, as the plight of poor Alexei Kolesnikov had demonstarted. Viper didn't know that they'd already been in and out of the _Ilya Murometz_ , but she would be certain that they couldn't get in or out of the _Perlboot_ without help, and she'd be right. Steve couldn't rely on Pym to save them – Pym was probably busy saving _himself_. He had to act now. Once they were on board the sub, it would be much more difficult to fight their way out again.

He waited until they were on the metal pier itself – surrounded by the icy water, it would be difficult for more people to come join in the fighting. They were walking in single file now – a soldier in front, then Tony, two more soldiers, Steve, and the rest of the squad with Viper in the rear. Steve tensed his muscles, took two deep breaths, and then whirled around to grab the rifle that was poking into his back. The man holding it tried to shoot him, but Steve pushed the barrel up so that the bullets went harmlessly into the cavern's high ceiling. After a brief struggle, he wrested the weapon from the man's hands, and threw him into the cold water.

Others rushed forward, but Steve fit the rifle to his shoulder and widened his stance, daring them to come at him. He wasn't used to working with a gun. He'd already thought of five things he could have done with his shield, but it wasn't here. It wasn't something he could bring along when he was supposed to be working for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"Hey!" a voice shouted behind him. Steve glanced back, and found that the two men in front of him had grabbed Tony's arms, while the one who'd led the way had his own gun to the kid's head. "Drop your weapon, Captain!" the leader ordered.

Steve's only idea was to shoot all three of them before they could carry out their threat to Tony, but before he could do so, Tony himself appeared to faint. His legs simply fell out from under him, and he dropped onto the catwalk. The two soldiers had to rebalance themselves and grab him, and that gave Steve an opening. He took one long step and kicked one in the head – the man fell backwards into the water. The second he hit with the butt of his rifle, and then the third toppled when Tony, not unconscious after all, yanked his legs out from under him. Steve grabbed the kid's arm and pulled him to his feet again.

"Well done!" Steve told him. "We're gonna get back to shore and steal one of those boats. Just do as I..."

"Viper!" a man shouted, and there was a loud _crack_ that echoed, deafening, from the stone and water. Steve turned in time to see a man dive in front of her and then fall against her – Viper herself instinctively backed away, letting his body drop to the ground. His head was bleeding. He'd been shot.

Men ran in from all directions. Some pushed the body out of the way, while others surrounded Viper with their own weapons out, all else forgotten as they prepared to defend her. Steve took a couple of steps back to cover Tony, and then looked up – the bullet that had struck the man had come from above.

High up near the cavern roof were a series of rafters that allowed for access to the light fixtures and ceiling-mounted cranes. A figure in black was crouched on one of these. Steve blinked, and for a moment it was a foggy day in Belgium and he'd looked back to spot Bucky, hiding among the timbers of a half-destroyed church, ready to pick off the German soldiers who were moving in on their position. Bile rose in Steve's throat, and he shut his eyes and shook his head hard. He could not do this now! He had to stay in the real world. He had to get himself and Tony out of here!

With a focused act of will Steve dragged himself back to reality, in time to see the man in black leap from the rafters and slide down the steep stone slope at the back of the cavern, graceful as a cat. Like a cat, too, he landed on his feet, and began walking towards the dock with all the slow, unstoppable power of an approaching tiger. The Winter Soldier.

This was ridiculous, Steve thought. They were surrounded by HYDRA personnel. How was he going to get to them?

The answer, apparently, was by simply not bothering to stop. The soldiers fired, but the bullets lodged in the assassin's kevlar clothing or pinged off steel armor. They barely slowed him down. He shot the first few men while barely bothering to look at them. Viper shoved her way out of her circle of protectors and stumbled out onto the dock, towards Steve.

Back in Viper's office, Steve had started to realize what must have really happened behind the Metropolitian Museum of Art that day, but now for the first time he consciousnly understood it. The Winter Soldier had never been there to shoot _him_ – he'd come for Viper, but Viper had sent Eva Natter to die in her place. At some point, he must have realized he'd shot the wrong woman, and now he'd tracked the right one down to finish the job.

Steve didn't care what happened to Viper, but Eva Natter had been, if not an _innocent_ victim, then at least an only _mildly_ guilty one. And even if Eva had never existed, this would still have been the man who'd killed Steve's friend and Tony's father. Steve had promised Peggy he wouldn't go _looking_ for the Winter Soldier, but when the Winter Soldier had come to _him_... that was a different story.

His anger at Viper had been hot and violent, ready to lash out without a particular goal in mind. The rage Steve felt against the Winter Soldier was cold and hard, and knew with merciless certainly _exactly_ what now had to be done.

"Tony, get down," Steve ordered, shoving the kid onto the floor, and then going to grab Viper. She was still backing away as her men tried to get between her and the approaching Soldier, but the assassin mowed them down without stopping. A man ran up and tried to stab him, but the Soldier grabbed the blade of the knife with an armored hand and yanked it out of his grip, then slammed a fist into the attacker's solar plexus. The man fell like a puppet with its strings cut.

Steve grabbed Viper's arm and shoved her behind him. He'd take care of her later. Right now, she was between him and his enemy. "Hey!" he barked. "You! Right here! Remember me?"

The rest of the HYDRA men glanced back at him, and those who had the sense to realize they were now between an unstoppable force and an immovable object quickly got out of the way, crawling on the metal dock or jumping into the cold water to save their own skins. One more tried to attack the Winter Soldier with a bayonet, but the Soldier shot him in the neck and then tossed his gun aside, apparently out of ammo. Instead, he pulled out the knife still wedged in his left hand's armor, and ran at Steve.

Steve grabbed his wrist and tried to bend the hand backwards to force him to drop the weapon, but couldn't do it. This man wasn't just armored – his entire arm was actually mechanical, made of overlapping metal plates. Was he a _robot_? It was probably possible. The Soldier's face was invisible behind his dark goggles and a mask. He had hair, but that could easily be a wig. Or if he _were_ just a tortured POW, then what the hell had the Soviets _done_ to him?

The Soldier yanked his arm out of Steve's grip and seized him by the arm and leg, intending to throw him into the water as Steve himself had done with their guards only seconds earlier. Steve broke free and rolled across the Soldier's back to land on his knees behind his opponent. There he quickly bounced back to his feet and spun around to reume the fight, but the Soldier was already walking away, heading for Viper.

She reached into a pocket and pulled something out, but then tripped over Tony, who'd been crawling away behind her. Tangled together, the two of them tried to crabwalk towards the shelter of the _Perlboot_.

"Hey!" Steve shouted to the Soldier. "Don't turn your back on me!"

There was no response. The Soldier didn't _care_ about Steve. He was after Viper, and anything in between him and her would be removed from his way – while anything that was not would be ignored. That made Steve angrier still. He had a _personal_ grudge against this man. The Winter Soldier was not allowed to ignore him.

"Come back here and fight me!" shouted Steve. He ran up to the man from behind and prepared to drive his elbow into the middle of his back. The Winter Soldier spun around and blocked the blow with his metal hand, selding a jolt of pain up Steve's bones to his shoulder. He yanked his arm back, and teased all the Russian he knew out of the back of his brain to say something he hoped this man would understand. " _Vy ubili_ Howard Stark!"

" _Eto byla moya missiya_ ," the Winter Soldier replied coldly. _That was my mission_. He turned away again.

Steve grabbed him from behind to wrestle him to the ground. The Soldier fought back. As they struggled, Steve noticed out of the corner of his eye that there was another fight going on back at the end of the dock, but for the moment that wasn't important. One way or another, he was going to subdue this man. One way or another, he was going to get revenge for himself, for Tony and Maria, for the Jarvises... for everybody who'd known and loved Howard Stark.

The Winter Soldier kicked Steve in the face, bloodying his nose and sending him sprawling backwards, then got up and continued on his way up the dock. Steve got up, shaking his head and tasting blood as it trickled down his throat. There was no sign of Viper and Tony now. They weren't in the water, so they must have hidden in the submarine. The Soldier had clearly come to the same conclusion. He climbed the conning tower entered the hatch.

Steve charged after him and dropped through without bothering to use the ladder. He landed on top of the Soldier, and the two resumed their struggle in the tiny space of the _Perlboot_ 's control room. After a moment Steve managed to get the upper hand. He rammed his opponent's head into the metal floor twice, then got up, panting, and looked around. "Tony!" he shouted.

"I'm here!" Tony appeared in the door to the engine room. Viper was behind him, looking just as terrified. "Is he dead?" Tony asked, looking at the Soldier lying on the floor.

"No," said Steve. He wanted to look this son of a bitch in the eye before he killed him. He grabbed the Soldier by his untrimmed hair, and lifted his head.

A moment later, the metal hand was around his throat. The Soldier slammed _his_ head against a pipe once, twice, three times, until Steve saw stars. He crumpled to the floor, but had strength enough to grab at the Soldier's leg as a booted foot came down on his neck, cutting off his air supply. Steve's eyes stung as hot liquid ran into them – he must be bleeding – but through that haze he saw the Soldier aim a gun at his head and prepare to fire.

Then an arm wrapped around the man's neck from behind and pulled him off of Steve. Steve grabbed the ladder to the hatch to pull himself to his feet. One of the rungs was loose, and one end slipped free under his weight, nearly dumping Steve on the ground again – he grabbed the rail instead, and hung there, gasping for air. Steve's enhanced metabolism required an enormous amount of oxygen. He couldn't hear anything but the ringing in his ears, but when he squinted through the blood trickling into his eyes, he saw that Tony had jumped onto the Winter Soldier's back, and was now trying to strangle him from behind. Stupid bastard, Steve thought, but for the moment he didn't have the strength to do anything about it.

The Soldier grabbed him by the hair and threw him to the ground in front of Viper. Viper grabbed Tony by the jacket and held him up in front of her to use as a shield. The Soldier raised his gun, fully intending to shoot right through both of them.

That brought that cold, implacable anger surging back. At least Howard Stark had died because somebody _wanted_ him dead – there was no way Steve was going to let the Winter Soldier murder Howard's brilliant, moody, struggling son just because he was _in the way_.

Without a second thought, Steve yanked the other end of the loose ladder rung free and hit the Winter Soldier over the head with it. The man was already a little unsteady, himself, from having his head banged against the metal floor a moment earlier, and this must have been just that tiny bit more than his skull could take. He staggered to the side, and Steve tossed his weapon aside, grabbed the Soldier's jaw in one hand and his shoulder in the other, and _twisted_. There was a nasty _crunch_ , and the unstoppable force that was the Winter Soldier crumped up like a suit of empty clothes.

Steve was still panting as he looked at Tony and Viper. Both of them were staring at him with wide, horrified eyes. They'd never expected to see Captain America kill a man. And now that the man in question was dead, the anger that had animated Steve flowed out of him, leaving him almost too weak to stand. He had to grab a control panel for support as he swayed on his feet, suddenly sick to his stomach.

"Are you okay?" he asked Tony.

"I think so," said Viper, still gripping Tony's shoulders with white knuckles.

"I wasn't talking to _you_ ," Steve told her. He took a deep breath and stood up, then pulled Tony out of her arms. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he demanded. "You would let Tony get killed just to earn yourself another thirty seconds?"

"Yes!" said Viper, with no hesitation at all. "Yes, I would!"

There was a soft sound behind them. Steve spun around, and Tony grabbed his arm in a panic, but the Winter Soldier was still lying dead on the floor. The sound had been Fyodorova, hopping off the broken ladder to land on her feet. She held up her arms. In one hand she had a rifle she must have taken off one of the HYDRA soldiers. Her white winter jacket was spattered with blood and a black liquid Steve hoped was just motor oil.

"Just me!" she said, then looked at the body on the floor. When she nudged it with her foot, it moved limply, the head rolling at an unnatural angle. "I see you didn't need me after all," she remarked.

"I can do _some_ things on my own," said Steve. It was hardly the time for a joke, but sarcasm made for a good way to release the tension of the fight. If only it would do the same for the nasty headache that was developing where the Winter Soldier had slammed him against the pipe. Steve wiped the blood off his face on his sleeve, then nodded towards Viper. "Hang on to _her_ , would you, Agent Fyodorova?" he added.

"With pleasure." Fydorova stepped over the Soldier's body and took Viper's arm. "You must be HYDRA's _Gadyuka_ ," she said to the other woman. "The KGB's been looking for _you_ for years."

Viper was aghast. "A black widow?" she asked. "You brought _Russians_? You're supposed to be _Captain America_!"

Steve knelt down beside the corpse and rolled it over, then raised his head to look at Viper. Her gracious demeanor was totally broken and she was staring at Steve in horror, as if he had somehow personally betrayed her. Given the situation, it was almost kind of funny. "They seemed like the lesser of two evils," he said.

"Aw, that's the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me!" Fyodorova's voice was dripping with false honey as she twisted Viper's arms up behind her back.

"Now, let's see the face of the man who murdered Howard Stark," said Steve. He broke the strap on the Winter Soldier's goggles. Tony crept nearer and knelt down on the other side of the body, holding his breath. Steve undid the buckle on the Soldier's muzzle and pulled it off to see what was underneath.


	19. Chapter 19: A Ghost

Steve couldn't remember the date, or even where they'd been that week – it might have been Italy, but it might also have been any of a thousand other places with bombed-out towns and ruined churches. After a while they'd all begun to look the same. What he _did_ remember was glancing back at the belltower where Bucky was squatting, rifle to his eye... and watching him fall.

It had seemed to happen in slow motion. A brick came out of the masonry, and Bucky's leg slipped. The rifle dropped as Bucky grabbed at the wooden frame that had once held the shutters that muffled the bells. These were old and rotten, though, and couldn't hold his weight. The wood splintered and broke, and Bucky's body dropped out of sight between the roofs.

Everything else had been abruptly forgotten, as Steve ripped his helmet off and ran back into the ruins to find him. He was not hard to find. His body was face-up in the mud in front of the church doors, his limbs splayed and his head rolling limply. For a few seconds, Steve had been certain he was dead. His friend had fallen and broken his neck while Steve was too far away to help him. He'd ripped off Bucky's hat and scarf and pressed two fingers into his neck, looking for a pulse.

In 1944, he'd found one, and sat back in the cold mud with a sigh of relief. Forty-two years later here he was again, on his knees in the damp cold with that moment of horror flickering in front of his eyes as he stared at the body of the Winter Soldier.

Maybe he was just hallucinating. Maybe he was still in the flashback... but the flashbacks never seemed to last more than a few seconds, while this was lingering in front of his eyes, refusing to fade no matter how many times he tried to blink it away. The Soldier had a square jaw and a dimple in his chin – Steve had always envied Bucky's jawline, which looked like a comic book action hero's. He had blue eyes staring glassily at the ceiling, but unlike in the flashback, he had no pulse at all.

"I thought he'd be older," said Tony.

His voice seemed to be coming from very far away, but it reminded Steve that he was not the only one seeing this. The reality of the situation started to sink in... but how _could_ this be real? Bucky had fallen from that train into a deep ravine. If the fall hadn't killed him, the bitter cold would have quickly finished him off. There was no way anybody could have survived that to come back as a brainwashed Soviet assassin... could they?

 _Could_ they? HYDRA had experimented on Bucky before Steve had managed to rescue him in Austria. They'd been trying to replicate Erskine's serum, just as the Americans had. Bucky and Steve had both noticed, in the months that followed, how his injuries seemed to heal faster than normal. After his fall from the church tower he'd been unconscious for two hours, and yet to the astonishment of the doctors he'd made a full recovery. HYDRA's experiments had clearly done _something_ , even if it wasn't a complete success. Could it have been enough for him to survive the fall? While Steve had been sitting there feeling sorry for himself and mourning his inability to drink himself into a stupor, had Bucky been alive and in pain and waiting for rescue?

And then the remains of HYDRA had found him first. They, too, must have been stunned by the coincidence – one of their subjects found alive, a perfect demonstration of how near they'd come to their goal. Fyodorova had said the Winter Soldier was a HYDRA prisoner, tortured and experimented on until there was nothing but a shell. The Russians must have overrun the facility they'd kept him at, and had decided to make the result their own.

It made an unfortunate amount of sense – and now Steve was looking at the face of James Buchanan Barnes, lying dead on the floor of the _Perlboot_ with his neck broken. Steve had just killed his oldest friend.

His brain didn't want to work. Even as he thought through the sequence of events that must have led to this moment, Steve could not _do_ anything with the information, except to find in it a possible ray of hope. If this _was_ Bucky, then maybe he wasn't dead. Bucky had survived the fall from the church tower without any brain damage or even any broken bones. He must have survived the fall into the snowy valley. Surely for somebody who could take all that, a broken neck was nothing, right?

"Bucky?" he asked, giving the body a gentle shake.

There was no response.

"Bucky? _Bucky_!" Steve insisted, shaking harder.

"Who the hell is Bucky?" asked Viper.

Steve had heard Tony's voice a moment earlier, but it hadn't really registered. It had been as if there were nobody but Steve and Bucky, alone in the middle of a soundless, lightless void. Now it suddenly clicked that there were still other people present, and Steve looked up. Tony was crouched on the other side of Bucky's fallen body, horrified and fascinated. Viper was in the doorway to the engine room, frowning in confusion. Fyodorova was climbing back down the ladder after locking the hatch, most likely on the theory that there were more HYDRA thugs _outside_ the submarine than _in_.

She dropped to her feet in front of Steve, brushing her hands off. "Let's get out before they try to get in," she said. "We can try calling Bocharov, but if that doesn't work..."

Steve didn't remember getting up. He only knew that he was suddenly on his feet, with his lower arm pressed against Fyodorova's throat to pin her to the ladder. Her gun was poking into his abdomen, but as far as he was concerned she could shoot him if she liked. She would just have to answer one question first.

"Did you know?" he demanded.

"Know what?" she rasped. His arm on her throat was crushing her larynx.

With his free hand, he pointed to Bucky's fallen body. " _Did you know_?"

"I don't know what it is you're accusing me of knowing!" Fyodorova dropped the gun to try to fight her way free. Steve pushed harder, trapping her neck between his arm and rung of the ladder. If she squirmed too much, he would break _her_ neck next.

"His _name_!" Steve roared. "His _name_ was James Buchanan Barnes! You knew!" She'd _tricked_ him. She'd _tricked_ him and _lied_ to him, and now he'd murdered his best friend!

"I didn't know his name! _Nobody_ knew his name!" she protested. "The files I found just called him _Zima_! He was listed under 'assets', like he was a piece of equipment!"

"You're lying! Peggy had the right idea – never trust a black widow!" Steve pushed her back further, bending the ladder. He could hear the metal groan. "I should have let her lock you up and throw away the key!" The longer he talked, the angrier he became, until his vision was tinted red and his blood was roaring in his ears. Steve pulled Fyodorova forward and then slammed her back again, intending to push her right through the damn ladder to the wall beyond, but she took advantage of the opening to twist in his grip and flip over his shoulders, putting him in a headlock.

"Will you just _listen_ to me?" she asked through her teeth.

Steve grabbed her by the hair and threw her on the floor. "Tell me the truth!"

"Dude! _Dude_!" Tony ran in and took hold of Steve's arm. "Stop it!"

"Get out of the way, Tony," said Steve, pushing him aside. Fyodorova was scrambling to her feet and he was determined that she would not get out of this room alive – not without admitting what she'd just made him do.

"What are you _doing_?" Tony asked. "You're gonna kill her!" He ducked under Steve's arm and stepped between him and Fyodorova.

"I said get out of the _way_!" Steve snapped, and threw Tony against a control panel. His head bounced off a computer screen, breaking the glass, and he slid to the floor with blood in his hair.

The sight was like a splash of cold water. He'd hurt Tony. Steve had been determined to keep Tony _safe_ on this mission because he was in a place where no sixteen-year-old boy should be, any more than Alexei Kolesnikov should have been anywhere _near_ the _Ilya Murometz_. Now Steve had deliberately hurt him himself. He'd nearly compounded killing his oldest friend by killing his newest one. _Shit_.

Steve turned away from Fyodorova and went to help Tony up, but the boy yelped and scrambled away from him, terrified that Steve was going to harm him again. If the sight of Tony's blood hadn't been enough to bring Steve to his senses, that would have been.

"Tony! I'm sorry!" he said, kneeling down to be on Tony's eye level rather than trying to bring Tony up to his. "Are you okay?"

Tony reached around to touch the back of his head. His fingers came away with blood and hair on them. He stared at it for a moment, and then finally said, "I don't know."

Steve looked up at Fyodorova, who was leaning on the ladder inspecting her bruises. "Find something to put on his head," he ordered.

"No," said Fyodorova.

"What?" Steve blinked.

"Sorry, I just wanted to _say_ it." Fyodorova looked around, then pulled down a jacket that had been hung on a peg, and started tearing the lining out of it to wad up into a compress. "Are you going to _listen_ to me now?" she asked.

Steve stood and got out of the way so she could treat Tony's injury, and then realized somebody was missing. He, Tony, and Fyodorova were all present, but there was no sign of Viper. They were locked in a submarine with at least one high-ranking HYDRA operative – and the more Steve came out of his shock, the worse he realized the situation was.

"Where's Viper?" he asked. "Where are Fury and Pym?"

"They're still working on the missiles," said Fyodorova. "I spotted the Winter Soldier skulking around and thought I'd better come warn you, in case Bocharov wanted you dead after all, but it seems I was a little late." She glanced at the body on the floor.

Steve followed her gaze, but then quickly looked away as the sight made his stomach lurch. He had to put that off. He had to deal with what was happening right _now_. When that was done with, _then_ he could think about all the million things he _could_ have done that would not have resulted in this. "Make them comfortable," he told Fyodorova, meaning Tony and Bucky both. "I'll find Viper."

She looked at him sideways, and for a moment he thought she was going to say _no_ again, either just to spite him or because she didn't consider him capable. Then, however, she nodded and helped Tony up. "Your eyes aren't dilated, that's a good sign," she said. "Are you dizzy at all?"

"No, it just won't stop bleeding," said Tony. The blood was soaking into the compress.

"Then don't take pressure off it," Fyodorova told him.

"The bunks will be through there, just behind the bow torpedo compartment," Steve pointed.

"How do you know?" asked Tony.

"Because this is a modified World War II U-Boat," said Steve. For a moment he wondered... _could_ he really trust Fyodorova with Tony? But it didn't matter. He didn't have a choice. He picked up the gun she'd dropped and made sure it was broken, and nodded a quick goodbye to them before turning in the opposite direction. While they went forward, towards the officers' quarters, he headed aft, through the doorway he'd last seen Viper standing in.

Why had she gone this way, he wondered. Was it just because the door was open behind her,or was there some other reason? If she were planning to take control of the _Perlboot_ herself, she would want to stay close to the main control room, where they'd all been a moment earlier. That would mean she was probably in the engine room just behind.

He entered cautiously, shining his flashlight into each nook and cranny as he searched, but there was no sign of her. There was, however, another door at the far end. That would lead to the aft torpedo room, and there was a light on inside. He crept closer and eased the door the rest of the way open.

Rather than a torpedo room, he found that the back of the _Perlboot_ had been converted into some kind of cargo compartment. Boxes and crates were fastened to the walls and floor by straps and nets, and two small hatches in the back wall led into yet another room beyond. The upper one of these was open, but Viper had not used it yet. She had, instead, pried one of the cargo crates open and pulled out a steel case, which she had opened to check on the contents. Her back was to Steve.

He crossed the room in two strides. She saw him coming in time to slam the case shut and hold it up to defend herself. He swung the butt end of the rifle and knocked it out of her hands.

"You're not going anywhere," Steve said darkly. He didn't know if Fyodorova had tricked him or not, but he was sure that Viper had. He needed to take revenge on _somebody_. It might as well be somebody he _knew_ to be a megalomaniacal liar.

She glanced right and left, then pulled out a knife. Steve grabbed her wrist – and while his attention was on that, her other hand jabbed something into his neck. He didn't get to see what it was, but it felt like an electric shock, crackling up his tendons, down his arm, through his ribs, in a wave of white-hot pain. He dropped to his knees, then fell to the floor on top of the case Viper had been checking on. She grabbed the handle and tried to tug it out from under him.

Even with his chest on fire and spots dancing in front of his eyes, Steve could think clearly enough to tell that this meant whatever was in the case must be vitally important. He wrapped himself around it as best he could with his muscles spasming, and refused to let go. Viper yanked on it, kicked him, and jabbed him again with the shock device, this time in the back, but he gripped as tight as he could. Finally he heard a creak, and blinked through the pain to see her vanish into the upper hatch. A moment later, the entire sub shuddered as something came loose from it.

An escape pod, he thought, and then he blacked out.

* * *

Steve came to on a stiff, uncomfortable bed, staring at a beige ceiling, and his first thought was to wish that Peggy and SHIELD had left him in the ice – if they had, he wouldn't feel so terrible now. He had a pounding headache, and his entire right side felt like it was prickling, as if half his body had fallen asleep and the feeling was only just coming back to it. The spots on his neck and back where Viper had pricked him felt like they still had needles of ice stuck in them. What the hell had been wrong with him when he'd wished he still had the capacity for a hangover?

The air was warm, which he did appreciate after the arctic chill. There was an IV in his arm... and the whole world was rocking slightly, which he thought at first might be because he was dizzy. Then he remembered what had just happened, and realized he was probably still on a ship. The _Sadko_? It hadn't been this warm even in the bunk rooms. He turned his head, which made his neck hurt like hell, but found only a white curtain hanging next to his bed.

"Over here," said a voice.

Steve turned his head in the other direction, which was even worse, and found Furry sitting by his bedside.

"Where are we?" Steve asked hoarsely.

"On board the _Richard E. Byrd_ ," said Fury. "It's a tanker, brings oil from Alaska to the Eastern Seaboard via Panama. Fyodorova found you unconscious and Stark called for help, so the chopper that picked us up dropped us here. It was the nearest thing to a hospital."

"Tony's okay?" asked Steve.

"Tony's fine," Fury assured him. "And the crew of the _Sinbad_ got dropped off in Barrow. There's a picture in the _Alaska Star_ of him shaking hands with the Mayor."

Bocharov had only been there to take revenge on Viper for the death of his brother, Steve thought. With his assassin dead, he had no more use for the hostages. Steve wondered if he would try again. "How'd you guys get out?" he asked Fury. After Viper had given the order to evacuate Gunnysack Island, the missiles must have been one of HYDRA's primary concerns.

Fury chuckled softly. "Pym had a tank in his pocket."

"A... tank?" Steve could think of several things that might mean. "What kind of tank?"

"An M26 Pershing, vintage 1946," said Fury. "You would have felt right at home."

Steve mentally ran down the list: he, Tony, Fury, and Pym were all okay, then. For a moment he didn't care whether Fyodorova had made it out or not, but Fury would probably have told him if she hadn't. That left...

"Bucky!" Steve started to sit up. "What about... oof," he grunted. The adrenaline of remembering what had happened to Bucky had given him a moment's strength, but with his head spinning and his back on fire, he had to lie down again.

"Careful," Fury told him. "You've been poisoned. Some kind of hemotoxin. The doctor on board thinks it was rattlesnake venom. He grew up in Arizona and says he used to see the same symptoms in bite victims there. Nobody carries antivenins on an arctic oil tanker, but lucky for you, it looks like your body _makes_ blood faster than the toxin destroys it."

That was good, but didn't answer Steve's question. "What happened to Bucky?" he asked.

"Bucky?" Fury echoed, confused – and for a moment, Steve dared to hope that maybe his fight with the Winter Soldier had never happened. Maybe it had been a hallucination, brought on by Viper injecting him with snake venom. Maybe he'd never murdered his best friend... but then his heart sank when he saw understanding dawn on Fury's face.

"Oh, the Winter Soldier," he said. "His body's on ice, down in the ship's meat freezer."

 _His body_. The words were like knives in Steve's brain. "Dead or alive?" he asked. Fyodorova had said they kept the Soldier in cryo. Maybe...

"Definitely dead," Fury said. "There'll be a proper autopsy once we get back to shore. Madame Director will want to know..."

"I want to see him," Steve decided, and forced himself to sit up. It made his ears ring, and every square inch of his skin seemed to hurt – and when he looked down, he saw why. He was wearing a nightshirt with short sleeves, and through the thin fabric he could see that his entire right shoulder and arm were a mass of swollen bruises where the venom had caused bleeding under the skin. He wondered what his face looked like, and raised a hand to feel it. The skin of his cheek was tight and tender, and the vision in his right eye blanked out white when he touched the lower lid.

"You look like you got trampled by a herd of elephants," Fury told him helpfully. "You probably shouldn't be up."

"I want to see him," Steve repeated. He was still hoping, somewhere deep down, that it wasn't true. That he hadn't removed the Winter Soldier's mask only to find the face of his own friend, or at least that he hadn't done so only after the man had already been dead by his own hand. It must have been half-nightmare, or half-hallucination, or _something_.

"You need help?" asked Fury.

Steve looked at the swollen fingers of his right hand, and grimaced. "Yeah. I think I do."

Fury helped him out of bed and supported him as he staggered towards the freight elevators. Several sailors were busy taking boxes off it, but they finished quickly and stepped aside for Steve and Fury to use it. Down in the ship's storage area, the freezer door was actually standing open. The interior had been thoroughly reorganized, with sides of meat and bags of vegetables stacked around the door, so the back could be home to a body bag, laid out on a plastic sheet on the floor.

Fyodorova was waiting there.

She had some bruises of her own, on her cheek and neck where Steve had shoved her against the ladder. He'd been so damned angry with her in that moment, it was a surprise she didn't have any broken bones. Steve probably ought to apologize... but how could he, when he would never know for sure whether she'd told him the truth about the Winter Soldier or not?

"Captain Rogers," she greeted him formally. "I"m sorry."

Steve's anger flared up again. "Why are you sorry?" he asked. Why should she apologize, unless he knew full well that she had something to apologize _for_?

"Because I didn't do my job," she replied. "Once I found out _what_ the Winter Soldier was, it didn't seem important _who_ he was, because there was nothing of that person left. I never connected the idea that he was alive when you were active. I never thought he might be somebody you knew. If I'd just looked a little deeper, maybe I could have found something."

She did _look_ like she meant it, but her words were the same words Peggy had used when she'd explained why she hadn't mentioned that the _Achilles_ was close to where the tesseract had been found. _I never even thought_. Steve still wasn't sure he believed that from Peggy, and he _trusted_ Peggy – mostly. How could he believe it from Fyodorova?

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "I thought I had gotten you enough information to find him, and that was enough. It wasn't. And I'm sorry it had to end that way."

"I want to see him," was all Steve said, because it was all he _could_ say. He couldn't forgive her – not when didn't even know, and probably never _would_ know, what he was forgiving her _for_.

Fyodorova stepped aside. With Fury's help, Steve stumbled into the freezer and unzipped the body bag. He pulled the stiff, frozen cloth aside to see the dead man's face.

It looked thinner than Steve remembered, but the basic features were there: the dimpled chin, the straight nose, the blue eyes. It looked like Bucky... and yet not _quite_ , and a few flicker of hope rose in Steve's chest. Viper and Eva Natter hadn't been the same person, they'd only pretended to be. Maybe this wasn't Bucky at all, just somebody who looked like him. Maybe Steve really had killed only a nameless Soviet agent.

"Have they identified the body properly yet?" Steve asked. "Dental records or anything?" That was how they identified murder victims, right?

"They'll do that when we get back," Fury promised. "It'll be important to know."

Steve nodded, and a moment latter he zipped the body bag back up so he wouldn't have to look into the face that both was and wasn't Bucky's. Then he lowered his head, shut his eyes, and did something he hadn't done in a very long time whether he counted his forty missing years or not – he prayed.

There hadn't been a whole lot of time for prayer during the war. Some people had muttered prayers in the trenches, but Steve had kept his mind on more important things, like what was coming next and how he was going to keep his men alive with or without divine help. _The Lord helps those who help themselves_ , his mother had told him. Then since he'd been thawed... well, he was out of the habit, and the world of the 1980's seemed like an unfriendly and foreign one, where appealing to God wouldn't do much good. He'd spent much of that time feeling like he was behind enemy lines again, where there was just no time to pray. Even when he'd attended services at the Wilsons' church, he'd been going through the motions without any real piety behind it.

Now he clasped his hands and leaned his forehead against them, trying to ignore the pain in his joints and the aching of his bruises, and begged for a favour only God could give him. _Please, please, please, don't let it be Bucky. I'll do anything. I'll quit being Captain America forever. I'll throw my shield in the ocean, I'll cut ties with everybody and go be a crazy hermit like those guys in the Middle Ages. Just please, God... don't let it be Bucky_.

* * *

When Steve returned, with Fury's help, to the infirmary, he found Tony sitting grumpily on a cot while a doctor inspected the back of his head. The boy sat up a little when he saw Steve limp in, leaning on Fury.

"Geeze, you look like hell," he said, as Steve sat down across from him.

Tony had said that before, the night Steve returned from his mission in Mesto Dvenadstat. He'd been right that time, too. It was nice to know there was still _one_ person Steve could count on to tell him the whole truth.

"How are you?" Steve asked.

"I'm okay, I guess," said Tony.

"Nine stitches," the doctor said sourly.

Steve swallowed hard. He'd split the back of Tony's head so badly it had required stitches. The young man he was supposed to _protect_.

"He doesn't have a concussion," the doctor added, "so as long as the cut doesn't get infected, he ought to recover just fine."

"They had to shave part of the back of my head." Tony turned to show Steve where they'd done so, to keep hair from getting in the wound. "Maybe I should just shave the rest of it, like Fury did."

"Go ahead," said Fury. "Gets awfully cold, though."

Fury got Steve settled on the bed, while a worker on the ship came in with a tray of food, soup and a sandwich, for Tony. Steve's stomach gurgled loudly at the sight and smell, which made everybody laugh – thin, high-pitched laughter that meant nothing was really funny. It felt good anyway, like a valve releasing built-up steam.

"You want it?" Tony asked, offering the tray. "You sound hungrier than me."

"No, thanks," Steve said, even as his stomach protested again. "You go first."

"If you're sure." Tony sat down and dug in, eating as if he, too, were starving.

It was awfully generous of Tony to offer to let Steve eat first. Steve could easily have killed Tony by accident, and with nine stitches in the back of his head Tony wasn't likely to forget that, yet he'd been willing to give Steve his meal. Howard Stark had often showed that same kind of offhanded generosity – knowing that _he_ had everything he could ever want, he'd been happy to give to anyone who needed it. Steve wondered if Tony knew he'd inherited that from his father. Probably not. He probably had no idea how many of Howard's good points had been passed on to him, because he'd rarely seen Howard's softer side, himself.

"Tony," said Steve.

Tony looked up, mouth full.

"I'm sorry," Steve said. "I'm sorry I hurt you. It won't happen again." He was determined not to let it.

"You were mad," said Tony with a shrug. "I get it. People yell and hit people when they're mad." His casual tone made a weird contrast with what he was actually saying.

Steve wondered who he was talking about. He hoped it wasn't Howard, but it couldn't possibly be Maria. "No, that wasn't..." he sighed. "I'm sorry." Yet how could he ask for forgiveness from Tony, when he couldn't _give_ it to Fyodorova? Did he _deserve_ to be forgiven, when he'd let his anger get the better of him like that, when he'd become the bully he'd wanted to fight? There'd been Bucky, or somebody who at least looked so much like him, lying there dead by Steve's own hand, but was that any excuse?

A few moments went by in creeping silence, and then Tony swallowed a mouthful and spoke again. "So that was the guy who shot Dad, huh?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Steve, his voice thick. "Bucky was always a great shot." He'd shot Eva in the park without even touching Steve. "It's no wonder they used him as a sniper. He just..." Steve hung his head. "When I was a kid, Bucky was... he lived across the alley from me, and we could talk to each other through our bedroom windows. My mother used to feed him when his parents were drunk. He would keep people from picking on me when I was too dumb not to start fights with guys three times my size. When Ma died... Bucky would have taken me in, but I wanted to go out and look after myself, I was too proud to be taken care of. Even when I had _nothing_ , I had Bucky."

Steve could feel his eyes pricking, and he felt like maybe he should stop. After all, he was supposed to be a role model or something to Tony. He wasn't supposed to be sitting here crying about things, but he went on. "When I woke up here, it seemed like all there was left was Peggy and Howard, and they'd both changed so much I barely recognized them. Then Howard died, and... if I'd _known_ he was out there, maybe I could have _done_ something for him." What could be done for the man Fyodorova had described, the empty shell of a tortured POW, Steve didn't know... and now they never would.

Steve felt something touch his bruised back, and flinched. He looked up to find Tony stepping back – he'd tried to give Steve a hug, but had forgotten about the effects of the toxin. "Sorry," the kid said quickly.

"Don't apologize," said Steve. Tony had nothing to apologize for.

"Is there anything I can do?" Tony asked.

"No," Steve said dully. There was nothing anybody could do now... except for God. _Please, please, please_ , he begged silently. _Don't let it be Bucky_.


	20. Chapter 20: Worlds in Boxes

Steve didn't remember much of the trip back south. He never left the infirmary, and so he remained unaware of the passage of days and nights. Time drifted by in a haze of aches and pains, medicine and bland food and bad dreams. Pym, Fury, and Tony each took turns coming to visit him, but Fyodorova did not, and none of the men mentioned her when they spoke to him. Steve wondered if she were even still on board. If there were anybody he could believe capable of simply vanishing into the Arctic wastes, it was her.

A couple of days might have gone by when Tony, who had been released from the infirmary almost immediately after the doctor stitched up his head wound, came back in with a metal briefcase in his hands and a big smile on his face. "Oh, good, you're awake," he said, and set the case down at the foot of Steve's bed. "I gotta show you this – you're not gonna believe it. Do you recognize this?"

Steve really just wanted to go back to sleep and forget that any of it had happened, but he sat up a little for a look. The case _was_ familiar, but it took him a few moments to place it – his brain felt... not exactly _empty_ , but as if all the important stuff contained in it had been moved to very high shelves and he didn't have a ladder. He had to metaphorically crane his neck and squint in order to see what was there, and he could only _look_ at the memories, not touch them.

"Yeah," he said finally, as the answer occurred to him. "That's the case E... the case Viper tried to take with her." The woman on Gunnysack Island was not and had never been Eva Natter.

"Exactly!" said Tony with a satisfied nod. "Now, remember I told you they probaby couldn't reconstruct the tesseract, because it's a unique object and only one can exist in the universe? Check _this_ out!"

He opened the case with a flourish. Inside, nestled in a foam cushion, were two cubes of smoky glass, each about four inches on a side. Tony pulled one out and held it up. "Guess what this is," he said. "Go on – guess!"

There was really only one thing it could be. "They're tesseracts?" Steve asked. He frowned for a moment, then quickly tried to resume a neutral expression – the swelling in his face had gone down a lot, but frowning still hurt. "You just said..."

"They're tesseracts with _nothing in them_!" Tony interrupted, delighted. "Because the cube itself, remember, is something somebody _made_ so that they could handle the singularity without touching it! Watch this!" He got his fingers around one of the faces of the cube and unfolded it, and suddenly it was _two_ cubes, stuck together on one side. "Pretty cool, huh? Now this!" Tony opened out a second additional cube from the first two, then a third, until he had six of them in the shape of a cross. He turned this so that Steve could see it from all sides, then folded it back up again into a single cube. "It's an _actual_ tesseract! You can unfold its fourth dimension into cubes, like unfolding a paper cube into squares, and then fold it back up again!"

That was probably interesting. It was probably something that would have made Howard giddy, and he would have talked about nothing else for weeks. It was probably something Peggy could have found at use for, or at least would have shut away so that nobody _else_ would find a use for it. But it was something Bucky would have pushed aside to let the eggheads deal with, while the rest of them got back to _work_.

Except that Bucky no longer had an opinion. Bucky was dead.

"Well?" Tony asked eagerly. "What do you think?"

"It's..." Steve tried to summon up some enthusiasm, but he just couldn't. "Peggy will want to see that," he said. "Right now... I think I need to go back to sleep." His muscles ached from days of inactivity – it was something or a relief to know that they _could_ still ache, even if it was unpleasant.

Tony wilted a little. "Oh. Right. Yeah, sorry, I shoudn't have bothered you. My bad." He slid the empty tesseract back into the foam, and closed the case with a click. "See you later," he said, and slunk out of the room.

Steve settled down again, feeling a little bad about his lack of reaction. Howard had never shared Tony's enthusiasm for anything – he'd complained about Tony watching too many science fiction movies, and hadn't been interested in fostering the young man's passion for space travel. After Howard died, Steve had tried to pay attention when Tony talked, just because it seemed to make the kid so _happy_. Right now, though... he just didn't have the energy.

Why had he _listened_ to Peggy and Fyodorova when they'd both told him not to go looking for the Winter Soldier? If he'd ignored them and set off at once, Fyodorova could have taken him to the facility where they kept him. There, he might have recognized Bucky, and maybe he could have broken him out and brought him home. Fyodorova had said there was nothing left of him, that he was nothing but a hollow shell... but how hard had the Soviets ever _tried_ to find out who this man was? What if he'd seen something familiar? What if Steve had only called him by name?

The worst part, Steve thought, was that now he would never know.

* * *

To judge by the comings and goings of the doctors and nurses, it was about a day and a half after Tony's visit when the ship dropped the group off at Anchorage. Fyodorova now reappeared, joining the men as they climbed down a rope ladder into a little coast guard ship that was going to take them to shore. Steve did not speak to her, and she said nothing to him.

At only sixty degrees north, they were now far enough from the pole that the sun was up, even if only for a few hours a day. It was low and dim, and cast long shadows through the icy fog that clung to Cook Inlet. The city itself was a little cluster of steaming buildings, rising out of snowy rocks and naked trees by the water's edge, while small boats chugged around and around in the inlet itself to keep it from becoming icebound. The coast guard took them to a pier at the northwest tip of the city, where Peggy Carter was waiting for them. She was dressed in a blue and yellow parka, her breath misting in the damp, bitter air.

"Agent Fury and Dr. Pym already called in a preliminary report about what happened on Gunnysack Island," she said, as she helped Tony onto the dock. "How is everybody?"

Steve gazed past her at the city to the south, squinting as the sun glinted through the buildings, and didn't answer. Tony's head injury was hidden for now under a knitted hat, but Peggy would have been told about it, and would know it was Steve's fault.

"I'm fine," Tony assured her. "The doctor said I have a rock-hard head."

"Just like your father," Peggy told him, with a fond smile.

"I heal quick," Fyodorova said, as she and Fury helped Steve off the boat next. Steve should probably ask her why she'd stayed, he thought, but then decided the answer was obvious – if she'd abandoned them, she woul dprobably never have seen Natalia again, and apparently that was unacceptable to her. "And Pym and Fury managed to take care of themselves just fine."

Peggy nodded. "Steve? How about you?"

He still didn't dare meet her eyes. "I'm fine," he said tersely.

"Mmm," Peggy said, and turned to lead them to a waiting station wagon.

As they buckled in, Steve looked out the window to watch as a couple of sailors unloaded the body bag that had been in the _Richard E. Byrd_ 's freezer. He felt his heart tighten at the thought of what was inside it. Wouldn't it be something, he thought, if they opened it and found it was inexplicably empty? Or opened it and discovered that in a different light, it didn't look like Bucky at all? Did he dare to hope for either?

"We've got a plane coming in to take us back to New York," said Peggy, getting in the front next to the driver, "but I want everybody to have a preliminary debriefing here first, while your memories are still fresh. Including you, Captain," she added – the title was to let Steve know that neither his grief nor his and Peggy's personal bond would get him out of his homework. "I understand that you may have some particularly important things to tell us."

"Yeah," Steve said quietly. "You might say that."

The driver took them to a motel next to the Anchorage International Airport. It was a surprisingly busy place, but the ongoing enmity between the US and the USSR meant that flights from North America could not pass over most of Asia – they had to be re-routed either far south or far over the pole to avoid entering Soviet airspace, and Anchorage was the most convenient place to do that from. There, they were all given lunch and fresh clothes, and then separated for interviews.

The rest of the group were questioned by a set of agents Peggy had brought along for the purpose, but despite having earlier addressed him as _Captain_ , she took charge of Steve's interview herself. She did not say why. Maybe she thought it would seem more like emotional support from a friend, rather than interrogation by a stranger. Maybe she was remembering that night in the bombed-out bar, after Bucky had fallen. Maybe it was just because she thought she could tell better than anybody else when Steve was lying.

Whatever the reason, she came into the hotel manager's office she'd commandeered with a cup of coffee and warm sandwiches for each of them, and sat down across from him at the desk. "Steve," she said gently, pushing one cup towards him, "I'm so sorry."

The polite thing to do would have been to thank her for the sympathy, but Steve didn't feel like he had that in him. He felt drained of all energy. Doing the simplest things required enormous effort, and social niceties just weren't worth it. So his only reply was a quiet, "so am I."

"Tell me what happened," said Peggy.

So he did. Steve figured Fury and Pym would already have discussed the _Ily Murometz_ and Alexei Kolesnikov. Tony would have told her about Viper and the two empty tesseracts, and if Fyodorova felt like talking she would probably go into details about the missiles. Steve therefore skipped all that and went straight to the _important_ part – what had happened on the _Perlboot_. How and why he had murdered his best friend.

When he came to the part where he'd taken the Winter Soldier's mask off, however, Steve found his voice just _stopped_. It wasn't that he would have broken down if he'd continued to speak – his throat simply closed up and nothing more would come out. All he could see was Bucky's dead blue eyes staring past him into the beyond. The pale, drawn face of the corpse in the meat freezer. The terrified howl as he dropped from the HYDRA train into the snowy valley below. The images filled his mind so completely there was simply no _room_ for words.

"Steve. I'm sorry," Peggy said again.

"Yeah," was all he could say. It wasn't enough, but it was all he could do – just like her apology, really. It didn't help, but it was all she had. Words were just the wrong tool, entirely, for the job at hand. Like trying to re-inflate a flat tire with a paintbrush.

"Steve," she repeated.

For the first time since coming ashore, Steve raised his head and made eye contact with her. He was startled by how _old_ she looked... Peggy _was_ almost seventy, but she'd aged well, and had so much _will_ that it was as if age were scared to touch her. Striding down a hall at SHIELD in her high heels and broad-shouldered blazers, she looked thirty years younger than she was. But right now, her face was lined with sympathy and fatigue and her eyes were shadowed from long travel and lack of sleep. She looked like nothing more or less than a tired old lady.

Steve lowered his eyes again. He felt pretty old and tired, himself.

Peggy got up from her seat and went to put her arms around him from behind. "I'm sorry," she repeated, resting her cheek against the back of his head. "I'm so, so sorry, Steve. I know how close you two were. I know how much you loved him, and then to see _that_... you won't believe me, but I have some idea what that's like. Now's not the time for that story, but god, Steve... I'm so sorry."

He nodded, but his throat closed again and he couldn't answer. Instead he just leaned forward with his elbows on the table and covered his face, while Peggy continued to hold him. He did not cry, though – how long had it been since Steve last cried? He could remember seeing tears floating away from him on the space shuttle _Intrepid_ a few months back, but those had been for anxiety and gratitude. Now all he felt was raw, messy, painful _grief_ with a side of guilt, and as much as it would have been a relief to let it overflow through his eyes, it wouldn't come. Was it because he'd been taught it was un-manly to cry, or because no matter how much anything hurt, Captain America did not scream? Or was it because he just refused to mourn for Bucky when there was still a chance, however small, that it was not Bucky in that bag.

 _Please, God. Don't let it be Bucky_.

"I should have come with you," said Peggy quietly. "I wanted to, but I had a busy schedule... and the cold is bad for my arthritis." She didn't sound as if she thought these were very good excuses. "Maybe I could have done something."

Steve shook his head. "No, you couldn't," he said. Peggy didn't need to feel guilty about this. _Steve_ was the one who'd hit Bucky over the head with a metal bar. That might well have been enough – he'd staggered sideways as if about to fall unconscious. Steve could have saved Tony and discovered who Bucky was while still alive, but no, he'd very deliberately grabbed him by the chin and the shoulder, and snapped his neck. Nobody had forced him to do it. He'd chosen to. This was Steve's fault and only Steve's, and Steve was the one who was going to have to live with it.

Unless by some miracle it was not Bucky in that body bag. He had to cling to that as long as he could. _Don't let it be Bucky. Please, God. Please_.

* * *

Very early the next morning, under a dark, overcast sky, they boarded the SHIELD plane to return to New York. Steve still felt dull, as if he were moving through a fog and seeing only shadows of the things around him. He sat by himself next to a window and stared out as the clouds slowly dank below them. When they got back, he would be able to return to his apartment next door to the Wilsons, he thought. They knew for sure now that the Winter Soldier was not looking for him, and probably never had been. He was safe to go home.

Maybe he should have been happy about that, but he didn't feel anything in particular. What did it matter where he lived? Bucky was coming back in a coffin in the plane's cargo hold.

The sun rose swiftly as they flew east, into its rising. The sky turned gold, then pink, and finally the familiar blue, and Steve closed the shutter on his window to keep the bright light out of his eyes. Not too long after that, Tony came and sat down beside him.

Tony had one of the empty tesseract boxes in his hand, and at first Steve was worried he was going to say something about Steve's earlier disinterest in them. Instead, though, he simply placed the box on the tray table in front of him, and sat there staring at it with a distant expression. The last time Steve had seen one of the tesseracts, it had been blank and foggy white, but today there were bright colours floating in it, red and blue and white, as if there were something inside.

Sure enough, after a few minutes Tony started opening it again, until he had all six cubes. He took a can of Pepsi out of each and arranged them in a pyramid on the train, then folded the tesseract back up into a box which, according to the normal rules of geometry, was too small for even _one_ soda can, never mind six.

Then he took a deep breath and looked at Steve. "Hey, uh," he said. "I know you... look, this is gonna sound terrible no matter how I say it."

Steve looked away, wishing the window were still open so he wouldn't be obviously staring at the wall. Dammit, he _was_ going to say something about the boxes, wasn't he?

Tony went on: "but I know you did that to keep him from hurting _me_ , and Madame Director says that was the guy who killed Dad. So I know this is not appropriate and whatever, but I... you know..." His voice got softer and softer as he spoke, and the final word came out in little more than a mumble. "Thanks."

Startled, Steve looked at him again. "Thanks?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Tony. "Like I said, I know it's... I don't even _know_ what it is. I know it sucks. It really, really sucks. But you did it to save me, so yeah. Thanks." He hung his head, as if afraid Steve would shout at him.

For a moment, Steve couldn't react at all. It was tempting to just sit there in silence, as he had with Peggy earlier, but he couldn't do that. Not when he'd already dismissed the poor kid once, and not when Tony was clearly so upset about having to say it while at the same time convinced it needed to be said. For this, Steve _had_ to fight his way through the gray fog and come up with something. Anything.

He licked his lips. "I can't say _you're welcome_ ," Steve said. Nobody was _welcome_ to Bucky's death. "I'm... grateful you're okay, though. I'm glad neither of us hurt you." How awful was that, that he could think of something _good_ that had come out of this?

If Steve had known in that moment that he was about to choose between Bucky and Tony, what would he have done? Would he have been able to do _anything_?

Tony perked up a little. "Yeah, and we basically won, right? The other guys disarmed the missiles, and we all got out okay even if Viper escaped, right?" he asked hopefully.

"I don't know. I guess so," said Steve, but that was only for Tony's benefit. If this were victory, then Steve would almost rather have lost.

* * *

Back in New York, the lights seemed far too bright, even at night, and the city far too loud. He was permitted to move back into his apartment, but didn't – packing up his stuff, even the minimal amount of it he'd brought with him to the SHIELD building, seemed like far too much work. He gave the excuse that he was jetlagged, and spent most of his first day back in bed.

On the second day, however, he found himself in a morgue near Chinatown, listening to a coroner giving a report on the Winter Soldier's autopsy.

"Cause of death," he said, "was severing of the spinal cord due to fracture of the second cervical vertebra. Death would have occurred more or less instantly..."

"More or less?" asked Peggy. "Either it was instantaneous or it wasn't." She glanced at Steve. Steve looked away.

"More," the coroner corrected himself. "Instantaneous, I mean. Without connection to the brain, consciousness would have been lost and the heart and lungs shut down at once."

Peggy nodded, satisfied, and Steve realized that had been for _his_ benefit. She'd wanted him to know that Bucky hadn't suffered.

The coroner, a nervous young man with very large glasses and ears that stuck out at the sides of his head, looked at his notes and went on. "There is extensive evidence of pre-mortem torture and disfiguration to the man's body," he said. "Much of it long-healed. For starters, there are a series of scars on the spine, suggesting samplings of or injections into the cerebrospinal fluid..."

Steve lowered his head and stared at the floor between his feet. It didn't matter, did it? Now that he'd realized Peggy had made this man say at least one thing explicitly for Steve's comfort, he couldn't trust any of his other findings. Maybe what he'd already heard was a lie – maybe Bucky had lain awake on the floor while his body faded away, paralyzed. Maybe, in those final terrible moments, he had even recognized Steve.

"Two broken ribs have been repaired with metal pins, one in two places." The doctor put an x-ray on his overhead projector. "Scrape marks on the bones suggest that this was done while the patient was conscious and only partially restrained."

Bucky had never talked about what had happened to him during his captivity in Austria, and Steve had never pressured him to. It had seemed better forgotten. Now he couldn't stop picturing it – not only the initial experiments, but what must have happened after the fall from the train. Steve had assumed that Bucky had died in the bottom of the ravine, and had consoled himself for those few days with the thought that it probably hadn't taken long. Now he knew that Bucky had suffered for months until there was nothing left of him but a mindless killing machine.

Unless it wasn't Bucky. The possibility was getting more and more remote, but he had to keep clinging to it. _Please don't let it be Bucky_.

"As for the man's identity..." the coroner turned a page.

Steve opened his eyes and sat up, heart beating faster. This was the moment of truth.

"We weren't able to find any civilian dental records from the 1940's," the coroner said, "but the army did have medical records for the party known as the 'Howling Commandos'. Sergeant James Barnes had suffered a couple of broken fingers, but those were on his left hand, and since the Winter Soldier doesn't have a left arm we couldn't use that to ID him. However, this man _does_ have part of a small port-of-wine birthmark on the back of his left shoulder..."

Steve's stomach dropped. He remembered that mark – as kids they'd thought it looked like a tadpole, or a snake rising out of a basket, or a Greek letter δ. It had faded as they grew, and wasn't likely to be in any of Bucky's medical records. That meant that in order to identify it as his...

"Unfortunately," said the coroner, "we do not have a picture of Sergeant Barnes' bare back to comepare it with – but there's a man in the room who might recognize it. Captain Rogers?"

Steve felt sick. It was going to have to be _him_. _He_ was going to have to decide if the Winter Soldier were actually Bucky or not. He shut his eyes and spent a moment remembering the little mark as he'd first seen it, while watching his friend try to catch grasshoppers in Prospect Park. He fixed the image in his memory, then heaved himself out of the chair and went to look at the coroner's photographs.

His first thought was overwhelming relief that they weren't remotely similar. Then he recognized that there was a scar running through the middle of it from where the Soldier's left arm had been amputated and the mechanical replacement attached. That had divided the 'tadpole's head from its tail, but if he imagined putting the two back together, and replacing the 'nose' that was invisible under the edge of the metal... for a moment he struggled with his denial, and then he gave up.

"Yeah," he said, pushing the picture back into the coroner's hand. "That's him."

He should have known the whole time. Why had he bothered with the bargaining and the prayers? Why had he been so set on fooling himself?

Peggy stood up. "Thank you, Dr. Weil," she said. "Steve, you may leave if you like."

"No," Steve shook his head. "I'm okay." He folded his hands on the table in front of him, and just stared at them. He'd _thought_ he'd killed Howard, indirectly, and that had been bad enough. Now he'd _actually_ killed Bucky, with his own bare hands. How could he ever be okay again? He was sure now: the only reason he wasn't screaming was because Captain America did not scream. He hadn't screamed since he'd been in Dr. Erskine's cocoon. He was not going to scream now.

"Sergeant Barnes will be buried with full military honours, as soon as can be arranged," Peggy said firmly. "The man was a national hero, after all. What he became after that was not of his own volition."

People began to get up and leave. Steve continued to stand there. He couldn't move. He couldn't even think – he had to remain perfectly still, because if he moved he would have to face the reality of the situation and he just couldn't do that.

Peggy came up and gave him a hug. "Christmas is next week," she said softly. "You're still welcome to spend it with us, if you like."

Steve hugged her back, but his heart wasn't in it. She was a frail old woman, and he was half afraid he would crush her – it would just figure, after he'd been at least partly at fault for the deaths of Howard and Bucky, if he accidentally killed Peggy too. "I don't think I can," he said. What good would he be, sitting there in the middle of a celebration, unable to do anything but watch?

"I understand," she said softly. "I understand."

"Why didn't I go _look_ for him?" Steve asked. She'd told him, that first day, that they'd never found the body. Why hadn't he known what that meant?

"Because I told you not to," Peggy said. "Because we had more important things to do. You couldn't have helped him anyway, Steve," she added. "There was... there was nothing left of him. He wouldn't have tried to kill you if there were."

Steve's eyes had been closed – now they opened. She sounded awfully sure of what she'd just said. Was that just an attempt to reassure him? Or did she know something she wasn't saying? He stepped back and held her at arm's length from him. "You told me not to look for him," he said. "Why?"

"I told you, it would have been a distraction," Peggy said. "We had a lot going on."

"Did you?" Steve looked into her eyes. "Did you tell me everything you knew?" The idea that had reared its head was so horrible he almost let it drop. He almost just walked away because it was an answer he didn't want to have. And yet, now that he'd thought of it, he _needed_ to know.

Peggy didn't answer.

"Peggy," Steve insisted. " _Did you know_?"

"No," she said.

It was too quick. Too defensive. " _Did_ you?" he insisted.

"No!" she repeated. She shrugged his hands off her shoulders and stood up straight. "I... I _suspected_. I had some intelligence about the program and a description of the man's history, with the fact that he'd been in custody before. It made me wonder. But I didn't know for sure."

Steve's jaw dropped. "Why didn't you _tell_ me?"

"Because I needed you to focus!" she said. "If you'd thought you were looking for Barnes you would have run off while we were still working on this tesseract problem. I couldn't let you do that."

"You couldn't... but you could let me murder my best friend? You could have told me _months_ ago! Why didn't you tell me way back in April when you thawed me out and I _asked_ you what happened to him?"

"I was trying to protect you. I was trying not to lay too many shocks on you at once," Peggy said. She looked down for a moment, then raised her head and swallowed. "Steve, I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

"Forgive you?" he echoed. This woman had the _nerve_ to comfort him and tell him she knew how he felt, and then to ask for his _forgiveness_ , when she'd hidden Bucky from him all this time? "For _give_ you?" he repeated, and... there was nothing he could add to it. There were absolutely no words for this situation. Faced with it, his voice once again entirely shut down.

His heart, however, did not – and in his heart, Steve knew that he could not do what she'd just asked of him. There would be no forgiveness for this, not now, and not ever.


	21. Chapter 21: Breaking Ties

"Steve," Peggy said, her brown eyes pleading, "please _say_ something."

Steve had found himself at a loss for words several times in the past couple of weeks, but not like this. There'd been times when he couldn't find the words, but right now the entire _concept_ of words seemed woefully inadequate. If he were going to _express_ what he felt, it would probably have involved tearing half the building apart with his bare hands, and he certainly couldn't do _that_. But what substitute was there?

Viper's revelation had surprised him, but it hadn't had the _impact_ of this, simply because he'd barely known her _or_ Eva. If he _had_ , he might have figured out for himself that they were actually two different people. Peggy, however, was the woman he'd once hoped to _marry_. He'd clung to her as a connection to the past, as an invaluable friend he couldn't bear to do without. He knew her husband and children. He'd eaten Thanksgiving dinner with them and had been invited to join them for Christmas. He'd _trusted_ her. Even when he'd been annoyed with her for keeping things from him, at some level he'd assumed there was a reason.

Now she wanted him to _say_ something. What in God's name was he supposed to say?

"Where is Fyodorova?" he asked.

Peggy blinked a couple of times, clearly startled by the question, and it seemed to take her a moment to remember the answer. "She's back in lockup," she said. "She actually went there herself. After debriefing she asked if we needed anything else from her, and when they said no, she said they could put her back in handcuffs and return her to her cell. We've got a camera on her, so we're _reasonably_ confident she's still there," she added, with just a hint of sarcasm.

Steve was not interested in her wit – or her issues with the Soviets. "Let her out," he said. "She was nothing but loyal the whole time we were up there. She could have turned on us at any time and I have no doubt she could have taken us all, but she didn't."

"Steve..." Peggy began.

"Let her _out_ ," he repeated. "Let her leave with her daughter."

"Natalia is _not_ her daughter," Peggy said, standing up a little straighter. "Their blood types rule it out."

"She's the only mother Natalia has," Steve insisted. "I'll keep an eye on them. You let her go."

Why was he demanding this, of all things? Was it actually because he believed it? Or was he just trying to spite Peggy by telling her to her face that he trusted a Soviet assassin more than he did her. It didn't matter. What did matter was that this was yet another contest of wills, and this time, Steve was not going to lose. He would stand here like a brick wall, insisting, until Fyodorova was out of that cell.

"All right," said Peggy. "I'll trust your judgment."

That was a lie, he thought. Peggy didn't trust him any more than she trusted Fyodorova – she just wanted his forgiveness, and she thought this might be a way to earn it. Or maybe she was hoping Fyodorova would betray him, too, and send him crawling back to SHIELD. If so she was in for a surprise, because he couldn't imagine a bigger betrayal than the one Peggy herself had just committed. Either way, he would have to keep looking over his shoulder. She would definitely have people watching him.

Peggy led him downstairs to the lockup. Fyodorova was sitting there, in the same cell, quietly reading a magazine. She looked up as they walked in.

"Where is Natalia?" was her first question.

"She's still with the Pym family." Peggy unlocked the door again. "You're both to be released into Captain Rogers' custody." Her voice was stiff and clipped.

Steve had expected Fyodorova to say something sarcastic, but all she did was set her magazine aside and say, "thank you." Steve supposed she didn't want to antagonize somebody who could still have her deported.

"Janet and Natalia should be upstairs," Peggy said.

"Thank you, Fyodorova repeated. She stepped out of the cell and took Steve's arm. Why did she do that? Was it so he could protect her? Did she want a hostage? That was the problem with people – their real motivations were inside their heads, and unless they explained, Steve could only guess at them. Even if they did explain, he had no way to know who was telling the truth.

* * *

Janet was, indeed, there in a quiet waiting room on one of the upper floors. It was furnished like a living room, with fake potted plants and coffee-table books. Hank was sitting beside her, and Hope was between them, reading a book. A large birdcage on the floor by the sofa had Crusoe the dinosaur in it, and Natalia was sitting cross-legged next to this, playing with a Rainbow Brite doll. The little girl was wearing a new pink plaid romper but despite that and the colourful doll, her expression was serious – until she looked up and saw the new arrivals in the room. Her face burst into a smile, and she bounced to her feet and called out, " _Konyshka_!"

Fyodorova hurried forward to scoop Natalia up and give her a kiss on the end of her nose. " _Were you a good girl for Mrs, Pym_?" she asked in Russian.

" _I was a very good girl_!" Natalia promised. " _She made her ants do tricks, and Hope gave me this dolly!_ "

Seeing this made Steve feel happy for half a moment, before his heart shrank in on itself again as he remembered all the other, horrible things that had happened in the last month. And then there was the fact that the Pym family and Natalia were not the only people waiting in the sitting room. Maria Stark was there, in a chair at right angles to the Pyms' sofa – she'd been talking to them when Steve, Peggy, and Fyodorova had walked in. Now, as the two Russians had their reunion, Maria stood up to talk to Steve.

"Captain Rogers," she said. "How nice to see you." Her voice was quiet and polite – the greeting was just a pleasantry, not something she actually meant. It wasn't that she was _unhappy_ to see him, but she had a reason for being here, and didn't want to get bogged down in small talk.

"Mrs. Stark," Steve nodded. "Or is it Mrs. Stane now?"

"Not yet, not yet," Maria said, shaking her head. "Captain Rogers," she took a deep breath, "where is my son?"

Her face was pleading – and Steve noticed that her left eye was not open as wide as her right, as if it were slightly swollen. Had she been crying?

"Tony?" Steve looked at Peggy. Tony was still staying with Steve in his room at SHIELD. Neither of them had bothered moving out yet. Steve was going to. Today. He wouldn't stay in this building where Peggy Carter was in charge. For the moment, though, she knew where Tony was better than he, so he had to look to her for help.

"He's downstairs, working on some the items Captain Rogers retrieved from the arctic," said Peggy. "Shall I call him for you, Mrs. Stark?"

"Please," said Maria.

Peggy made a phone call, and everybody waited nervously. Pym sat on the sofa, drumming his fingers on his knee and sipping at a styrofoam cup of coffee. He looked tired and grouchy, even more so than usual. Janet and Fyodorova talked quietly, with Janet giving the other woman an assortment of parenting advice while Natalia leaned over to look at the pictures in Hope's book. Maria stood in one place, stiff and distant.

Steve stayed next to Maria. He felt like he should say something to her, since he was the one who'd taken Tony away from the apartment for a second time, but she didn't seem to be angry with him. She didn't seem to be angry with _Tony_ , either, just quietly upset. Most likely, she just wanted to know her son was safe, to have him home again.

Peggy waited by the door until Tony arrived, and then showed him in. "Ah, Mr. Stark," she said. "You have a guest."

The first thing Tony saw was the cage with Crusoe in it – he headed for that with a smile, only to stop short a moment later, when he noticed his mother.

"Tony," said Maria.

Tony put the stack of papers he was carrying down on top of the bird cage and then came closer, reaching for his mother's face. She caught his hand before he got there, and made him lower it as she squeezed his fingers affectionately.

"What happened to your eye?" Tony asked.

"I slipped in the shower and knocked my head on the faucet," Maria replied. Tony opened his mouth to say something, but she interrupted him. " _Tonino_ , when are you coming home?" she asked. "It won't be Christmas without you."

Janet Pym got up. "Well, we should probably be running along," she said. "Right, Hank?"

"Right." Hank finished his coffee and offered Hope a hand. "Come on, Honeybee."

"Bye, Natalia," said Hope, waving to her new friend.

"Merry Christmas," Peggy said to them, then took Steve's arm. "Captain, if I might have a word," she said.

Steve followed her out, because she and Janet were right. Maria and Tony needed privacy to have what was probably going to be a painful conversation. He got a glimpse of Fyodorova leading Natalia to the other end of the room, asking her to show her a toy that was there, and then Peggy softly shut the door.

"Steve, is there anything you need right now?" she asked.

Steve needed Bucky not to be dead. He needed to know that there was _somebody_ who would tell him the truth when he needed to hear it. He needed a tall frothy beer in a bar in the 1940s with his lost friends. But he wasn't going to get any of that from Peggy – she was the person who'd taken it all _away_ , by thawing him out four decades into the future. "No," he said.

"Then I'll give you some space," she said. "Do you want to come to the funeral?"

"Yes," Steve decided. The least he could do was to see off the friend he'd murdered.

Peggy nodded. "As of now, you're on sabbatical until at least the end of January," she promised. "Merry Christmas, Steve." She stood still for a moment, her head facing him even as her eyes darted back and forth, trying to think of something else to say. In the end she couldn't, so she just walked away.

Steve waited there for a few minutes, lost in his thoughts. He could hear voices from inside the waiting room, and a clinking sound as Natalia demonstrated the toy, moving big wooden beads around corners and loops of wire. It all faded into the background, though – until the door suddenly banged open. Steve jumped a bit, then turned, expecting to say goodbye to Tony. He figured Tony would have extracted from his mother a promise to talk some sense into Stane, and would be going home for Christmas. But Tony stalked out alone, carrying the cage with an agitated Crusoe inside it.

"Tony, _please_ ," Maria begged.

"Not while he's still there!" Tony informed her, heading for the elevator. He banged on the 'down' button, somewhat harder than necessary. "I don't like him, and I won't live with him!"

"Obadiah has never been anything but kind to either of us!" Maria huffed.

"That's not even _true_ ," Tony told her. "He just moved in and took over – that's not _kind_ , that's _conquest_. He _hit_ you!"

"He did _not_!" Maria touched her swollen eye self-consciously. "I told you, this was an accident. Tony, you cannot _possibly_ make me choose between you and Obadiah. You cannot ask that of me!"

"Well, I'm _not_. I'm making my _own_ choice," said Tony, as the elevator doors opened. "And I'm choosing to leave!" He stepped into the elevator car.

"Tony!" Maria hurried to join him.

The doors began to shut.

"Anthony Stark!" she barked.

The doors closed.

Maria stared at them a moment, then saw Steve. " _Colpa tua_!" she told him, furious. "This is your fault! You dragged him off into danger – he's going to end up like his father, in a plane crash or shot in the head!" She turned and stormed back into the waiting room to get her things.

Steve pressed the elevator button himself. He hoped it would come and go by the time she got back. When he heard the door open a moment later, he winced, but it was just Fyodorova carrying Natalia. She came and silently joined him as a second elevator arrived. They stepped in.

" _What did_ you _do when you were gone_?" Natalia was asking her caretaker.

" _We went back to the cold_ ," Fyodorova told her. " _Captain Rogers rescued a boy who was trapped all alone in a submarine. He was very happy to go home_."

" _Did you see the blue aurora again_?" asked Natalia.

" _No_ ," said Fyodorova. " _And if we did our job right, nobody ever will_."

It didn't take very long to spot Tony once they arrived on the lobby level. He had evidently realized that Crusoe's cage was too big to take through the revolving doors, so he was now trying to get out one of the regular doors next to it, pushing with his back – but the door would not budge. Tony muttered some bad words and turned around to kick it in anger.

Steve went up and opened it for him.

"It's a pull door, not a push," he pointed out.

"Shut up," grouched Tony.

Steve followed him out, with Fyodorova and Natalia trailing behind. It was snowing slightly, and his jacket was still hanging on a hook in Peggy's office, but he wasn't going back for it. Nor was he going to go pick up his stuff from the room he'd been staying in. He would call later and have somebody bring it over, or maybe just do without it – it wasn't like he'd taken much with him. Steve didn't want to spend a moment more in that building when he didn't have to.

"Are you going to need a place to stay again?" he asked Tony. Tony Stark was one of the few people Steve wouldn't mind having around right now. Mostly because Tony always told Steve the truth, even when the truth was _you look like hell_.

"No. I'll go stay at the place in Brooklyn again," said Tony. "Or maybe even at the Mansion," he added, referring to the old house on Fifth Avenue that Maria had said would be turned into an art museum someday. "There's still power and whatnot there for the guards who look after the art collection. They can't throw me out when I technically own the place."

"All right," said Steve. "If you need somebody..."

"Thanks. I'm fine," Tony said, and hurried down the steps to Park Avenue, where he put up a hand for a taxi.

Steve stood back and said nothing more. Who was _he_ to offer anybody comfort, when there was nobody who could offer it to _him_?

"Captain?" asked a voice behind him.

He looked over his shoulder – Fyodorova and Natalia were still behind him. They both looked slightly worried, uncertain of their own futures.

"Madame Director said we're being released into your custody," Fyodorova reminded him. "So... now what?"

Now what, indeed? "We'll go back to my apartment," said Steve. "It's not much, but it'll be better than the abandoned place where you were living. The people next door are nice." He hadn't thought of it this way yet, but helping Fyodorova and Natalia was probably a good idea, even if only because it would give him something to focus on, something to keep him from sinking into the darkness.

Or maybe not. After Bucky died – after Bucky died the _first_ time – he'd set out to destroy what was left of HYDRA. He'd failed. After Howard died, he'd set out to look after Tony. He hadn't don't a very good job of that, either. Now... who was he to try and take charge of a woman and a child? What if he failed at _that_ , too?

It probably wouldn't matter. Konstantina Fyodorova was more than capable of looking after herself.

"All right," said Fyodorova. "Thank you. I know you don't need to trust me. In fact, trusting me is a terrible idea." She smiled weakly.

"I've made worse decisions lately," Steve said. At the bottom of the steps, a cab pulled away with Tony and Crusoe in it. Steve went down to the street to see if he could get the next one. Peggy, with her obsession with security, would probably be upset that he hadn't asked for a SHIELD car. Under the circumstances, his only thought on that idea was a vindictive, _good_.

* * *

The last thing Steve needed at that moment was another awkward situation, but apparently the universe was not yet done with him. Their taxi pulled up outside the building where he lived and they headed into the lobby. As Steve reached for the elevator button, the mechanism 'ding!'ed and the doors opened. There were Paul and Darlene Wilson, with baby Sam in his mother's arms.

"Steve!" said Darlene with a smile. Her voice seemed terribly loud in the empty lobby, with its bare walls and cracked tiles. "We were just talking about you!"

The idea of _holding a conversation_ , of being pleasant and trading meaningless neighbourly bullshit, was so exhausting that a part of Steve wanted to just turn and walk back out of the building, or push past them into the elevator without a word, or even to just tell them to go to hell... but he knew he couldn't do any of those things. Captain America didn't do that, and Steve Rogers' mother hadn't raised him that way. So he made the formulaic reply, "only the good stuff, I hope."

"We were wondering where you were, actually," Paul said. "We haven't seen you in a couple of weeks, and we were worried."

"We had heard about the German lady being shot," Darlene agreed, "and since the magazines said you two were close, we thought maybe it was something to do with that."

"No," said Steve. "I've just been..." he paused. Usually when he went away, he told the Wilsons he was _working_ , and they wouldn't ask for details. They knew his work was secret. They were also perceptive enough to know when something was wrong, though – so instead of the normal excuse, he said, "a friend of mine died. One of the old crew, from the war."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Darlene. "Was it Peggy's husband?"

Steve cringed. "No. One of the others."

"If you need somebody to talk to, you can always come by the church," said Paul. "We've got the numbers for a couple of grief counselors."

"Thanks," said Steve, but he knew he wouldn't do that. He wouldn't be able to admit to the counselor that his friend was dead because _he'd killed him_. Even if that wasn't covered by his nondisclosure contracts, it was not something he could ever tell anybody, because nobody would want to think that Captain America was a murderer.

Steve couldn't think of anything to add to that, so for the next few seconds the Wilsons just stood there looking awkwardly concerned, until Darlene decided to smile at and green Fyodorova. "Hi," she said. "We're the Wilsons, Steve's next-door-neighbours. I'm Darlene, this is Paul, and the little guy here is Sam." She gave the baby a bounce. He was looking at Fyodorova with big solemn dark eyes, and sucking on his own fingers.

"I'm Connie," Fyodorova replied smoothly, "and this is Natalia." She looked at Steve, inviting _him_ to come up with a story. Why couldn't she think of one herself? She was supposed to be the secret agent.

"I know her from work," he said. "She lost her lease, so I invited her and her daughter to come stay with me for a while."

"That's very generous of you," Paul said, with one eyebrow raised. Not surprising – he was a preacher, after all, and Steve had more or less just told him that he was planning on living in sin with a woman. Why _shouldn't_ he look askance.

There were another few silent seconds.

"We really should be on our way," Darlene decided, shifting Sam from one arm to the other. "It was nice meeting you, Connie."

"Thanks," said Fyodorova. "I'll see you again soon, I'm sure."

The Wilsons left, talking in low voices as Paul held the door for his wife. Steve, Connie, and Natalia stepped into the elevator.

"They seem nice," Fyodorova observed.

"They are," Steve agreed. Right at that moment, however, he never wanted to see them again. He never wanted to see _anybody_ again, really. The Wilsons turning up in the elevator were just a reminder that he was going to have to keep seeing and talking to people day by day, whether he liked it or not.

She licked her lips. "I meant what I said earlier. I didn't know you knew him. I wish I'd..."

"Forget it," Steve said gruffly. There was nothing anybody could do about it now.

Steve unlocked the door of his apartment. Nobody had touched it since he'd relocated to SHIELD a couple of weeks ago. Dust had gathered on the coffee table and on top of the TV, and the dishes he'd left in the sink were still there, the traces of food on them gone either rock-hard or moldy. Even his laundry bag was where he'd left it, draped over the back of his sofa. At the time, he'd been in too much of a hurry to clean up. Now it didn't seem worth the effort.

Fyodorova seemed surprised by what she saw. "Is this it?" she asked, peeking into the kitchen.

"Do you expect me to believe you didn't know where I lived?" Steve said.

"I knew the address, but I'd never been here," she told him. "I would have figured Stark would find you something nicer."

"I told them I didn't want their help," said Steve. "I want to make it on my own." That was what he'd once told Bucky, too. "You and Natalia can have the bedroom. I'll sleep on the couch."

"You should get one of those sofa beds," said Fyodorova. She set Natalia on the ground. " _What do you think, Solnyshka_?" she asked.

" _I like it,_ " Natalia replied with a smile.

" _Then say thank you to Captain Rogers_ ," Fyodorova told her.

Natalia looked up at him. " _Spasibo_ ," she said.

"In English," Fyodorova said firmly.

The little girl took a deep breath. "Thank you, Captain Rogers," she said carefully.

"You're welcome," he replied. Then added, "it's Steve. Call me Steve, Natalia." He didn't know how comfortable he was with _captain_ right now.

Natalia cocked her head and turned to Fyodorova for permission. She wasn't used to calling any other adults by their first names.

"It's allowed, Natalia," Fyodorova said, and began taking dishes out of the sink.

"You don't have to do that," Steve said, putting out a hand to stop her, but she gently pushed it aside.

"I like to earn _my_ keep, too... Steve," she said. The name was a test. Was she, too, allowed to call him that?

"All right... Connie," he replied. The Wilsons would be expecting to hear him call her that, anyway.

She nodded, and began running the water to fill the sink. "What would you like for dinner?" she asked, businesslike. She squirted liquid soap into the water, and the bubbles foamed up.

"You're gonna cook for me, too?" he asked, startled.

"I like cooking, and I don't get to do it very often," she said, wetting a dish cloth. For a moment she was silent, and then she sighed. "It's something _normal_ people do."

 _That_ , Steve could understand. Of all the things his life had ever been, _normal_ was not one of them and probably never would be. Right now, however, a little _normal_ was the best thing he could think of. A little bit of pretending everything was all right, even if that was no longer possible.

"What do you want to make?" he asked.

Connie looked at Natalia, who was making herself comfortable on the sofa. "Natalia," she said, "what do you want to eat?"

" _Pel'meni iz lososya, pozhaluysta_ ," said the girl.

"English," Connie reminded her.

Natalia pouted, thinking about it. "Fish bread soup?" she tried.

"Salmon dumplings with broth." Connie nodded. "Do you like Russian food, Steve?"

"I've never tried it," he admitted. Fish dumplings sounded odd, but they couldn't be any worse than some of the stuff they'd tried during the war. In many of the various places he'd gone with the commandos, they'd all dared one another to try the strangest-looking local dishes they could find. Some of them hadn't been half-bad.

"You'll learn to love it in no time, especially with me cooking it," said Connie proudly.

It could be a trick, Steve supposed... they could be trying to poison him. But even if they were, somehow it really didn't seem to matter anymore.

Once Connie finished the dishes, she gave Steve a shopping list and sent him to the grocery store on the corner to buy the ingredients she needed for the dumplings. He went, wondering as he did whether she would be there when he got back. Maybe she would take all his stuff and vanish into the night. Steve wouldn't particularly care if she did – the only possession he was particularly attached to anymore was his shield, which he'd left at the building because the trip to the wreck of the _Ilya Murometz_ had technically been an undercover mission. Considering what it represented, she could have that, too.

Connie herself had said, 'trusting me is a terrible idea'. Why had she said that? It was obviously _true_ , but why did she go to the trouble of pointing it out to a man who was offering her a temporary home? Was it just so later she could say she'd warned him? But she'd said such things before, too. She'd warned him that he was using him, that any partnership between the two of them would last no longer than it took to destroy HYDRA. The impression Steve got was that she was telling the _truth_. She wanted his help, but not because he had any illusions about her – there seemed to be nothing for her to gain from her warnings, except that he would know she was being honest with him.

Or was that what she _wanted_ Steve to think?


	22. Chapter 22: Dropping the Shield

James Buchanan Barnes was laid to rest in Cypress Hills cemetery in Brooklyn, the day after Christmas. Not very many people came, but Steve supposed there weren't very many _left_ , after all this time, who had actually known the man. Even of the people who had, who wanted to leave their families on a day of celebration – or their shopping on a day of bargains – to mourn a man who'd already been dead for forty years?

* * *

Steve had celebrated Christmas the previous day with Connie, Natalia, and Tony. The only person who'd gotten any gifts was the little girl. Steve had gone out the previous evening to get her a set of colourful plastic ponies and a bobble hat with matching mittens. They were pretty generic as gifts went, but she was delighted by them. Tony had also brought her a present, a pink plush bear with a heart on its belly, and Natalia looked like she had never seen so many toys in her life. Maybe she hadn't.

Connie had made them a dinner of salmon, potatoes, kidney beans, and honey dumplings called _pagach_. It wasn't the traditional turkey the wealthy kids used to have when Steve was little, the one he'd always envied with a watering mouth, but it was kind of nice to have something different instead of a repeat of the meal he'd already eaten three times at thanksgiving, and very tasty once he got used to it.

"You're stuck now," Tony had said with his mouth full. "He's gonna make you cook for him all the time."

"Mrs. Wilson will be glad _she_ doesn't have to do it anymore," Steve replied with a wan smile.

The effort of being awake and out of bed and interacting with people was still almost more than Steve could bear, but despite his exhaustion he made himself go with the others to the Prospect Park Zoo. He remembered the old menagerie from his childhood – he and Bucky had gone there once or twice to see the lions and elephants, strange beasts from faraway lands. The zoo hadn't changed much since then, it had only decayed. Garbage lay around both inside and outside the cages. There was a rat foraging in the bear exhibit, and a balding vulture glared down at its visitors from its perch in a rusting cage.

This was what had happened to the world while Steve was sleeping, he thought. Things that had once been wonderful and exotic were now falling apart and covered with trash.

* * *

Twenty-four hours later, Steve was sitting in a chapel pew, alone – Peggy, Fury, and Tony were across the aisle – while the friend he'd gone to see the lions with long ago was laid to rest. Dum-Dum Dugan, frail and liver-spotted and walking with a cane since his stint in the hospital earlier that year, got up and gave a speech about the Bucky Barnes _he_ remembered. A loyal friend, he said, a fantastic shot, a brave soldier who would do anything for the team and the cause. He did not discuss, because he didn't know, how Steve and Bucky had been close as children. How Bucky was the only one who seemed to care about the skinny, sickly little boy who'd always sat by himself drawing while the other kids ran around. How the Rogers family had been a haven for Bucky to hide in while his parents were drunk, and how Steve's mother had patched up the bruises when Jim Barnes beat his son. How they'd been all each other had for years and years... and then suddenly, he'd been gone.

Steve had snatched him from the jaws of death once. Somebody else had done it the second time. And then the third... when by the time Steve realized he'd had him, it had been too late.

Apparently SHIELD had originally planned to cremate the body, ostensibly to save space but probably so that nobody would have to look at the scars, or see the missing arm. It was Peggy who'd intervened, and he was laid out whole in a coffin. The lid remained closed, which made Steve's mind wander off to places where the body might not actually be in there... where somehow, despite the broken neck and the fact that the coroner had already done an autopsy, Bucky had gotten up and walked away and might still be out there somewhere. Steve shut his eyes and swallowed his nausea and tried to push the image away. Wishful thinking would do him no more good at this point.

After the service, everybody went into another part of the building for snacks. It was a bare, beige room with uncomfortable metal chairs and utilitarian tables disguised by ugly plastic tablecloths. Steve didn't eat anything. He sat in a corner with a cup of coffee that was slowly going cold and the flag they'd given him in his lap, and stared off into infinity. They hadn't had a funeral for Bucky during the war – there hadn't been time. They'd had to get on with things and stop the _Valkyrie_. Steve had assumed they'd hold one later, and maybe they had, but he'd never asked. Perhaps being able to attend _this_ one ought to be closure, but it was the exact opposite. It only emphasized the gaping hole where Bucky should have been.

"Steve."

He looked up. Peggy was standing over him. Their eyes met, and she took that as permission to sit down beside him.

"I know you don't want to hear this," she said, putting a hand on his arm, "but I suspect this was the kindest end he could have come to. It was quick and painless, and there wasn't anything you could have done for him regardless. There was nothing of James Barnes left in that body."

Steve lowered his head again. "We'll never know, will we?" he asked.

"I suppose not," Peggy admitted.

"How long had you known?"

She sighed heavily. "I'd suspected for the last ten years or so, but I had no proof," she said. "I know I could have told you when you first asked, back in April, but it would only have upset you and you were already upset enough. Besides, what if I were wrong? Then... Steve, if I'd told you I thought it was Barnes, you would have taken off after him at once, wouldn't you?"

She was remembering that day in Europe when he'd learned that Bucky was a prisoner, and had immediately set off alone to find him. She thought he'd do that again. She was probably right, too.

"I couldn't have you doing that, Steve," Peggy said. "It would have reflected poorly on me and the entire country, and for another thing..."

"We had more important things to do," Steve said bitterly. "Yeah. I know." Steve Rogers had never been as important as Captain America – not to the SSR, not to SHIELD, and apparently not to Peggy Carter, either. Seeking an excuse to leave, he finished his coffee and went to get another cup from the urn. Why the hell did they call it an _urn_?

Tony was there, filling a cup for himself. He was dressed in black, all brand-new clothes. He hadn't even gone home for his clothing, Steve observed. He'd gone shopping instead.

"Hey," said Tony quietly. "How are you doing?"

"Fine," said Steve, knowing it was an obvious lie. It didn't matter.

Tony nodded. "Uh... this is an awful time to bring this up," he said, "but I might need to stay with you for a few days, anyway. Stane had me thrown out of the place in Brooklyn for squatting. Apparently if I don't want to come back to the penthouse, I'm not allowed to come back _anywhere_."

"My place is kind of full," said Steve. With him, Connie, and Natalia all there it was somewhat claustrophobic, especially in the damp, cold weather.

"Yeah," Tony said. "It's just..." he took a deep breath. "I've actually been staying with the Jarvises on Long Island, but tonight's the first night of Hanukkah, and I don't wanna be in the way."

"I don't think they'd mind," Steve staid. Edwin and Anna Jarvis were practically second parents to Tony. Why wouldn't they want him around on a holiday?

"They don't." Tony focused on stirring his coffee, not looking at Steve. "It's just that... you know, I know Dad's family was... but when I was little we always had Christmas because of Mom. I don't really know how it works, but I think you're Jewish if your mother was, so I'm not, and..." he shrugged awkwardly. "Besides, Dad wouldn't have wanted me to."

Howard Stark had always done his best to distance himself from anything he'd thought would make other people see him as less – even, or maybe especially, when those things were inescapably a part of him. "You don't have to do what your father would want you to," said Steve.

"I know," said Tony. He glanced up, but then his eyes found something _behind_ Steve. "Oh," he said. "Madame Director."

Steve looked over his shoulder – sure enough, Peggy was coming to join them. He quickly looked for an escape route. Maybe he could go grab one of those sandwiches, despite the fact that the thought of eating right now made him feel ill. Maybe he could just hide in the washroom, like he used to when bullies followed him at school...

Tony stepped past Steve and reached into his jacket, pulling out a white envelope. "Madame Director," he said. "I need to talk to you."

"I don't think this is the time _or_ the place," said Peggy. She wanted to continue to talk to Steve.

Steve, however, was not going to let her get away with any more hypocrisy. "Why not?" he asked. "You asked _me_ what progress we had on the metashapes in the middle of _Howard_ 's funeral."

"That was different," Peggy said.

"No, it wasn't," Steve told her. She was going to have to live with the things she'd said and done, just like Steve was.

"Madame Director," Tony repeated. He offered her the envelope "I wanted to give you my CV. Stane cut off my allowance, so I need a job."

Peggy shook her head. "Your father didn't want you involved in SHIELD."

"Howard is dead," said Steve. "Tony doesn't have to do what he wanted."

Tony continued to offer the envelope to Peggy. "I've already been involved in two major investigations," he said. "I'm the best person to understand and continue the work my father was doing for you. I have undergraduate degrees in physics and computer sciences, and a doctorate in engineering from MIT. I've won four robotics prizes and built a fusion reactor. I'm a NASA contractor and an astronaut with eighty hours in space. Where else are you going to find somebody with those qualifications?"

"Just because they're remarkable doesn't mean we need someone who has them," Peggy noted, but she opened the envelope and unfolded the sheets of paper inside it. "If I put you in harm's way again, your father's ghost will haunt me to the end of my days. But I'll see if we can find you a desk job, or something in R&D or equipment."

"Thanks," said Tony, and offered her a hand to shake. It was such an ordinary gesture, but the way he did it – back a little straighter, chin a little higher – was all Howard Stark.

An hour or so later, as they were all leaving, Steve decided he could no longer put off the decision that had been in the back of his mind all week. He was not angry at all with Tony for wanting to work for SHIELD. As he'd said, he needed a job, and his existing connection with Peggy was a food in the door to get one. She would find him something he was good at, and she would take care of him. But Steve himself no longer wanted anything to do with her.

He went to his car and pulled out the big canvas bag he'd stashed in the back, then approached Peggy as she was climbing into the SHIELD vehicle that would take her away. The day after Christmas and the day of a friend's funeral, and she was going back to work.

"Peggy," he said, and held out the bag. "I would like to tender my resignation."

He hadn't been sure how she would react. She took the bag from him, and her brown eyes went wide as she felt the shape and weight of what was inside it. When she unzipped it and looked, there was Captain America's shield.

"Howard made it," Steve explained. "It belongs to SHIELD, not to me."

"He gave it to you," she said.

"I'm giving it back," said Steve. He wanted her to know that this was final. As the days had passed, it had become more and more apparent that the pain of her betrayal was not going to go away. Steve's anger had settled down from a raging inferno to a dull, smoldering ache, but it was still there, simmering quietly under his breastbone. He could never forgive her, and if he couldn't forgive her, he couldn't work for an organization with her at the helm.

Her eyes filled with tears, and she quickly closed them. Steve wondered if she'd only just realized what she'd done.

"I'm sorry, Steve," she said.

"So am I," he replied, and walked away.

Tony was passing, on his way to the bus stop, but when he saw what had just happened he stopped and stared with his mouth open. "Dude," he said, as Steve approached him. "You just gave up your _shield_? That's yours."

"No, it's not," said Steve. "Actually, I think your father paid for the Vibranium himself – if it belongs to anybody, maybe it belongs to you." Trying to enforce that would mean talking to Peggy again, though, and he wasn't going to do that.

"It belongs to _Captain America_ ," Tony insisted.

"I'm not Captain America anymore," Steve said. Captain America was the property of the SSR, which had become SHIELD. If Steve didn't work for SHIELD, he wasn't Captain America. Even his uniform belonged to some damned comic book company. Captain America had never been the same person as Steve Rogers. Bucky had understood that. "Do you need a ride? If you really need someplace to go... the couch at my place is occupied, but if you've got a sleeping bag you can have the floor."

"I can?" Tony asked, startled by either the offer or the change of subject. "Oh, thanks! I'll only stay a few days. As soon as I can get my own place, I'll go. I promise," he added.

"You don't have to hurry," said Steve. "More bodies will keep the place warmer." That had been how it worked in Brooklyn during the Great Depression, when nobody had been able to afford to heat their homes.

Steve climbed into his car, and Tony got into the passenger-side seat. Bit by bit, the real world was starting to reassert itself, and would have to be dealt with. The thought still made him feel drained, but there it was. "I hope you don't mind if we make some stops on the way back," he said. "Connie asked me to get some groceries."

"So she _is_ going to keep cooking for you," Tony observed with a smile.

"She's gonna keep cooking for Natalia," said Steve. "I just happen to live there, too." He started the car. It didn't matter how Connie felt about _Steve_ , really, the point was that she loved and wanted to protect this little girl she'd picked up somewhere. Maybe she was determined to stick with Steve because she felt he was the best person to protect _her_ while she did that.

"If you're not going to be Captain America anymore, what are you gonna do for money?" Tony asked as they got on the road.

Another bit of the real world. Another thing he would have to deal with. Steve had felt his first couple of weeks in this future depending on the Stark family, but he couldn't do that anymore. What was left of the Stark family wasn't even going to look after its own. "Well," he said. "I guess there _is_ one other thing I know I can do."

* * *

There were dancing girls, because of _course_ there were – they wore patriotic leotards and leg warmers, and did Jazzercise moves on the wooden floor with their spiral perms bouncing. After a moment of music, the line of women parted and Captain America stepped out, smiling, dressed in an American flag t-shirt.

"I'm Steve Rogers!" he said. "Super-soldier serum isn't for everybody, but now its effects _can_ be, with new Anabolic Yeast dietary supplements!"

The shut cut to a beaming woman in similar exercise clothing, opening a packet to pour the powder inside into a milkshake.

Steve continued to speak in voiceover. "With brewer's yeast and a scientific mixture of amino acids, vitamins, and minerals, it's just what you need to build muscles and stay fit! When you..."

There was more to the spiel, but that was where it became inaudible. Tony had slid off the sofa and was now lying on his stomach on the floor, banging on the hardwood with a fist as he laughed helplessly, tears in his eyes.

"It's not that funny," said Steve, as the commercial continued.

"Oh, my god!" Tony grabbed the coffee table to pull himself back up into a sitting position. He was gasping for air. "Oh, my _god_ , that is the most amazing thing... you know, I saw some of your old war bonds ads and I thought _those_ were funny, but this is some... _what_ are you doing with your pecs?" he asked, as the Steve on the television screen twitched them before taking a big swig of fortified chocolate milkshake.

"They showed me a clip of some German bodybuilder doing it, and asked if I could do the same thing," Steve said.

The figure on the television screen saluted the audience. "Anabolic Yeast dietary supplements – to bring out the superhero in _you_!"

Tony cracked up all over again.

It was the middle of February. The weather had been particularly miserable all winter, and it was chilly and damp in Steve's apartment. Peggy had sent him, through the mail, a big sweater as a Christmas gift, but it was lying still folded on the dresser in his room. He couldn't bring himself to wear it. That would have been a step towards forgiving her, and he couldn't do that. Not yet. Not ever. Fortunately, Connie had bought extra blankets to keep Natalia warm at night, and the three of them were sitting huddled together in those, while Tony laughed on the floor.

"It _is_ pretty funny," said Connie.

"Not _that_ funny," Steve repeated.

"Everything's hilarious when you're sixteen." Connie stretched with her arms above her head, letting the blankets slip off her shoulders, and then stood up. She had changed her appearance again since coming to live with Steve, bleaching her hair and cutting it quite short, with layers that needed to be carefully blow-dried into place each morning. She'd also taken to wearing more makeup, and big dangling earrings... Steve wasn't sure where she found the motivation to get ready every morning. He'd gotten better at forcing himself to go through the motions, but there were still days when he could barely get up the energy to shave.

"I assume if Tony's here, he's staying for dinner," Connie went on. This was something she and Steve had actually been trying to encourage, since if Tony ate at his own apartment, he and Crusoe tended to share hot pockets and canned soup. "Anything in particular you want me to make?"

"How about those deep-fried pirogi?" asked Steve. It had not been empty bragging when she'd promised to teach him to enjoy Russian food.

She nodded. "I can make those if somebody wants to go to the grocery store and get cheese. We're almost out. Tony, think you can do that for me?"

"Sure," said Tony. He was still giggling even though the commercial was over and the television show they'd been watching, a sitcom about a family with a small furry alien living in their house, was back on. "Right now?"

"Pirogi are time-consuming." Connie opened the fridge to look inside. "Looks like we need bacon, too."

"I can find bacon from a mile away," Tony bragged. He pulled his winter coat and scarf down from the pegs by the door. Both were new, as was almost everything else he owned. He'd started more or less from nothing after Stane and Maria had cut off his money, but whatever he was doing at SHIELD seemed to pay reasonably well. Peggy had helped him find an apartment, in a much better neighbourhood than the one where Steve was living, and had taught him some of the basics of surviving on a salary that he'd never had to learn from his parents.

" _Solnyshka_ ," said Connie, "can you wash the potatoes for me?"

" _Da!_ " Natalia exclaimed, dropping her toys and running to do so. She was too young to _peel_ them, but young enough that _washing_ them seemed like a very important job to her.

"I'll peel," Steve offered. It would force him to turn off the television and get up.

Tony, at the door, laughed again. Steve glanced at him. "What now?" he asked.

"Nothing," Tony said. "You guys are just so... domestic. It makes me think of Jarvis and Anna having me help with Thanksgiving dinner when I was a kid." Steve expected to see a shadow pass across Tony's face at the memory, but instead he was all smiles. "Except you're a superhero and a Russian spy who might have to kill each other tomorrow!"

"I was trained for undercover work," said Connie. She was already making pirogi dough. She didn't use a recipe book when she cooked – she seemed to know how to make everything by heart, or maybe she just made it up as she went along.

"Crusoe," said Tony, and held out an arm. The little dinosaur, which had been sitting on the arm of the sofa, perked up and immediately scrambled up his sleeve to his shoulder to go with him.

With Tony gone, Natalia got up on a stool to start washing potatoes in the sink, then passed them on to Steve who peeled them and cut them up. Now that he was conscious of the situation... it _was_ domestic, wasn't it? Here they were, like a family of three – father, mother, and daughter – just making dinner together. It was something Steve had never really been a part of before. His father had died when he was little, and Bucky's parents hadn't exactly been a harmonious couple. This was what he and Peggy had been dreaming of during the war. The domestic life they'd hoped would come after it.

A crummy apartment in Harlem, one that Steve _could_ have moved out of months ago but had never bothered because he liked his neighbours and didn't need anything fancier, was a long way from the farm he and Peggy had hoped to buy. An orphaned girl who barely spoke English and might or might not be a princess was a long way from the children they'd planned to have or adopt. And a Russian agent who was wanted in two countries and whose real motives were deeply inscrutable was a long way from the warm and trusting relationship he'd once had with Peggy Carter. At the same time, though... this wasn't bad.

Steve wondered, did he like this because he actually did _like_ it? Or was he doing his best to enjoy it because it was the nearest thing to normality he was ever likely to get in this world?

"Put them in the pot with just enough water to cover them," Connie reminded him.

"You know, we've done this before," said Steve. "I know how to cook potatoes." He got a pot out – he'd actually had to buy _saucepans_ since Connie and Natalia had come to live with him – and ran water into it. Then, as he put it on the stove, he decided to try something. He leaned in, and kissed Connie on the cheek.

She looked up at him with a half-smile. "What was _that_ for?" she asked, although she certainly didn't sound upset about it.

"Nothing much," said Steve. "I'm just being domestic."

Connie laughed and pushed her pirogi dough aside, then took his face between her hands and kissed him on the lips. It was brief and chaste and simple – and it was followed by her aggressively ruffling his hair.

"Now you're covered in flour!" she said with a laugh.

"Oh, it's _on_ now!" Steve said. Connie had left the sifter, with flour in the bottom, on the counter. He snatched it up, preparing to shower her with the contents, but was interrupted by the ringing phone. "Hold that thought," he said to Connie, and with the sifter of flour still in one hand, he grabbed the telephone with the other. "Hello?" he asked.

His heart nearly stopped when he heard the voice on the line. "Steve?" asked Peggy. "I know we haven't spoken in a while and you're probably still angry with me... but I need your help."

He had made the effort to stop answering the phone _Rogers_ , as if he were reporting for duty, but in that moment it was the idea of _duty_ that came flooding back to him. Steve found himself automatically standing up straighter, raising his head as if at attention. He found himself wanting to call her _Madame Director_ the way he used to do on missions, and to ask what she needed – and the automatic nature of that response made him a little angry. That wasn't who he wanted to be anymore. He didn't want to be part of an organization that kept the kind of secrets SHIELD kept. He didn't want to be Captain America if that were what Captain America stood for.

Even so, something in him couldn't just say _no_ without at least finding out what was going on. So instead he asked cautiously, "with what?"

"I can't tell you over the phone," said Peggy. "I need your agreement. Please, Steve, you're the only one who can do this."

She'd said that to him about Dvenadstat, and that had gone badly – admittedly that was because of Connie, not because of him, but he'd failed to see the warning signs. She'd said that about the _Achilles_ , too, and that had ended in Janet getting hurt. Her cast was off now and she was back at work, but Tony had said she was in physical therapy and not yet fit for field missions. Apparently she was dying of frustration and making Hank even more miserable than usual.

"Tell me what it is," said Steve.

Peggy's breath hissed in the microphone as she sighed. "Please don't do this right now, Steve," she said. "I'm desperate, but I _have_ to stick to procedure. If you're not a SHIELD employee anymore, I need you to sign a nondisclosure agreement before I discuss it with you."

"You didn't have me do that before Dvenadstat," said Steve.

"Dvenadstat was off the books. This is on them. Steve, we don't have _time_ for this," she pleaded. "Can you please just _trust_ me?"

The dull ache of anger and betrayal inside Steve suddenly flared up into a roaring flame again. After all the things she'd hidden from him, she wanted him to _trust_ her? Who the hell did she think she was? "What, so you can make me do something I don't want to do, because by the time you tell me what it is I've already agreed to do it?"

"No, Steve, I..." she was quiet for a moment. "I hoped you'd be ready to come back by now. It's been two months."

"Is that long enough to get over murdering my best friend?" Steve asked coldly.

There was no reply at first. In fact, there was no reply for so long that Steve began to wonder if Peggy had hung up. Then, finally, she said, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"No, you shouldn't have," Steve agreed.

"Don't hang up," Peggy said quickly. "If you won't help me, then I need Tony."

Steve hesitated. "Is that a threat?" he asked, his jaw hardening again. "If I don't come, you'll send a sixteen-year-old boy into a situation so dangerous you thought only _Captain America_ could cope with it?" Was she _trying_ to make him angry enough to rip the phone out of the wall? Because if so... he was getting close.

"No. I only need his advice on some of the technical aspects," said Peggy. "Stop twisting everything I say."

"Then stop saying things that can be twisted. I'll tell Tony you called," Steve promised, and then he hung up.

A moment later, he regretted that. Shouldn't he have at least heard her out? There might be people who were really in trouble, people who needed help... but the last two jobs he'd done that 'nobody else could do,' everybody he was supposed to rescue had been dead when he found them. The phrase was a damned curse.

On the other side of the kitchen, the potatoes were boiling and Connie was kneading pirogi dough, but the fun mood of a few moments ago had evaporated completely. Steve stepped in between Connie and Natalia, and began gathering up the potato peelings to throw them away. His chest felt tight, and his mind was seething.

"Any input?" he asked Connie. He knew perfectly well she had listened to the whole conversation, even if she had pretended to concentrate on her cooking.

"Don't look at me," she said. "I'm not going on her mission, and she wouldn't let me if I volunteered."

"But?" Steve prompted, arms folded across his chest.

"What makes you think there's a _but_?" asked Connie.

"There's always a _but_ ," said Steve.

"You don't seem like the type who sits these sorts of things out,"Connie said.

Tony returned a few minutes later with snowflakes in his hair – and Crusoe's feathers – and the promised groceries in a bag on his arm. He walked into the room and before he'd even unzipped his jacket, he could clearly tell that something was wrong. "What happened?" he asked.

"Madame Director called," said Connie.

Tony immediately looked at Steve.

Steve shook his head. "She wanted to talk to _you_."

"Oh? Oh!" Tony grabbed the phone receiver, then paused. "Is it okay?" he asked.

Steve shrugged. Tony could go ahead, as far as he was concerned.

Tony returned the call and held a very brief conversation with whoever answered. He nodded, promised he'd be there, and then he hung up and grabbed his stuff again. "I have to go," he said. Once again, he sounded as if he wanted to know if it were all right with Steve.

"You don't need my permission," said Steve, but he had to ask: "where are you going?"

"Just over to SHIELD," said Tony. "She says she needs me to look at some blueprints."

"What for?" asked Steve. Six months ago there would have been nobody on Earth he would rather have trusted with Tony's safety than Peggy. Now... he wasn't sure. It was true that she _knew_ Tony, that he was the son of one of her oldest friends... but he'd seen what she'd done do a _two-year-old_ when they'd brought Natalia to the building.

Tony hesitated. "I think I'm not allowed to tell you. I mean, you don't work for SHIELD anymore." He shifted his weight from foot to foot, awkward.

"Right," Steve said. "Go ahead."

Tony opened the door again. "I doubt it'll take long... I'll be back later," he promised. "Save me some pirogi. And sour cream."

"I can't promise anything, the way Steve eats," said Connie.

The door closed, and Tony was gone.


	23. Chapter 23: Return and Retread

Tony didn't come back in time for dinner. Nor did he show up _after_ dinner – Natalia's bedtime was at seven, and she complained that Tony hadn't come back yet and she wanted to play with Crusoe some more, but Connie insisted that growing girls needed their sleep.

There was no sign of Tony the next day, either, or the day after. The weather got steadily worse, with snow blowing by in clouds of fat flakes that made it difficult to see across the street. The subway closed, and the entire city settled down in a sort of semi-hibernation as five and a half million people hunkered down to keep warm and dry. Connie and Natalia sat doing a child's jigsaw puzzle on the floor, while Steve cleaned up dishes and wondered if he ought to try to call Tony. Did Tony have one of those answering machines to take a message if he wasn't there? Or would the phone just ring and ring until Steve gave up?

He had just about made up his mind to try when the phone in the apartment rang. Steve didn't need to call Tony. Tony had just called Steve.

"Hello?" Steve asked, holding the receiver between his chin and shoulder so he could finish up the dishes.

"Hi," said Tony quietly. "Can I come over?"

Again, he was asking permission. Tony only did that when he thought he was doing something Steve wouldn't approve of... which didn't usually apply to showing up on his doorstep. Maybe it was because he felt like Steve disapproved of him working for SHIELD. If it came down to it, that wasn't something Steve was exactly _happy_ about, but Tony was almost an adult and could make his own decisions about where to work. Steve respected that. He would have to do or say something to make sure Tony was aware.

"Of course," he said. "What happened?"

There was no answer at first. "I... I don't think I can tell you," Tony said, and then hung up.

He arrived at Steve's door over an hour later, bundled up in coat, hat, scarf, and mittens. He obviously hadn't slept, and his face was pale. Crusoe was curled up inside his shirt for body warmth, and emerged only rather reluctantly from Tony's left sleeve when the winter things started to come off.

Connie was waiting with a steaming mug. "I made you some hot chocolate," she said.

"Thanks," Tony replied. He accepted the cup, but did not drink from it as he sat down on the sofa, staring off into space. Steve's stomach sank. He recognized that stare. That was the expression of a man who had seen something – or worse, _done_ something – that he wished he hadn't had to.

Natalia got up from her puzzle and hurried over to greet him and Crusoe. "Are your hands cold?" she asked. As a joke, Tony would sometimes put cold hands on her cheeks to make her squeal.

"Freezing," said Tony, with a forced smile. He reached out, and she grabbed his hand and pressed her face into it.

"Cold!" she giggled.

Steve came up and put a firm hand on Natalia's back. "Natalia," he said, "do you want to go play in your room?" He caught Connie's eye, and she nodded.

"Come on, _Solnyshka_ ," Connie said, scooping the little girl up to kiss her cheek. "Let's leave the boys alone." She carried her off into the bedroom.

Steve waited until the door closed, then sat down on the coffee table so he could face Tony. "What happened?" he repeated.

"I don't think I'm allowed to tell you," Tony repeated. He looked into the mug Connie had given him. "Can I have a drink?"

"You've got a drink," said Steve, who was definitely not going to give a sixteen-year-old any alcohol. Especially one whose parents had both been habitual drinkers.

"Dad used to let me drink," Tony complained. "Even _Obi_ let me drink."

"I'm not your father, and I'm definitely not Obadiah Stane," said Steve. "You came here because you wanted to talk to me. What did you want to say?"

Tony reached into his coat, which he'd draped over the back of the sofa, and pulled out both Crusoe and a copy of the _Daily Bugle_ which had been tucked itself it. Steve hadn't gotten a paper delivered that morning because of the weather, so when Tony shooed the bird off and unfolded it, that was the first Steve had seen of the day's headlines.

 _Reclusive Scientist Dies Suddenly_ , it said. There was a photograph of Dr. Pym with a red question mark superimposed over it.

Steve had seen people die. He'd been at his father's bedside, and then his mother's. He'd watched Bucky fall, and then watched him crumple, and had seen Howard's broken body on the pavement. But Steve had never, he realized, had to be the person who'd been _told_ that somebody died. The closest he'd ever come had been when Phillips had told him Bucky was probably dead, and his immediate reaction had been denial. That time, his denial had been borne out by actual events, so his first instinct now was to think that Dr. Pym must be in need of rescue.

"What happened?" he asked, for a third time.

Tony lowered the newspaper and looked up at him with pleading eyes. "You won't tell anybody I told you, right?" he asked. In that moment he didn't look anything like his father. He looked like a frightened child.

"Of course not," said Steve. He just needed to find out what was wrong, and go _do_ something about it.

Tony took a deep breath. "The newspaper says he was found dead and they're trying to imply it was some kind of drug overdose, but I think... I dunno what actually happened, but remember the other night when I had to leave? They managed to put one of those Russian missiles back together out of the bits we left behind on the island, and somebody had fired it at Washington."

" _What_?" Steve sat up with a jerk. _That_ was what Peggy had wanted his help with? HYDRA had declared an actual war, and Steve had just sat there eating pirogis with his pretend family because he was too angry at an ex-girlfriend to intervene? "Why didn't we hear about it?" The weather was bad, sure, but a nuclear attack on the nation's capital wasn't something that could be kept secret by a snowstorm.

"It didn't get there," Tony said. "Dr. Pym intercepted it. Madame Director wanted me there because the targeting system they used was one of Dad's. I don't know where they got it. Madame Director says it doesn't matter. Dr. Pym caught up with the missile and I was trying to tell him how to deactivate it, but they'd put a titanium shell around it and his laser couldn't cut through. He said something about shrinking between the molecules, and then Madame Director came in and told me to go home. I've been waiting for her to call but she hasn't, and..."

"Tony," Steve interrupted. "I know where you're going with this. It wasn't your fault. You weren't there. You weren't involved in his decision-making."

"I was looking at the notes all night," Tony went on, as if Steve hadn't spoken. "I figured out another way he could have gotten in. But when I went to go back to SHIELD yesterday and see if I could find out what had happened, I saw the newspapers..." he wasn't even looking at Steve – he was staring past him, babbling.

"Tony, it was _not your fault_." Steve took Tony by the shoulders to emphasize the point... but even as he did, he wondered who the hell _he_ was to make it. After Bucky had died – the first time – Peggy had tried to tell Steve it wasn't his fault, and he hadn't believed her. How could he say the same thing to Tony?

Then the answer came: he could tell Tony that Dr. Pym's death was not his fault, because Steve knew in his heart that it _wasn't_. It wasn't Tony's fault at all. It was Steve's.

Steve was the one who'd said _no_ when Peggy had called him in desperation. He was the one who'd forced her to turn to Tony and Pym for the job Steve refused to do. It was impossible to say how things might have gone differently – as Peggy herself had pointed out, nobody ever finds out what _would have happened_ – but Steve _was_ sure that if he'd been there, Tony wouldn't have been. And if he hadn't, he would not now be here, getting eaten alive by survivor's guilt.

"Come here," said Steve, and gave Tony a hug. Tony had needed a lot of hugs lately, and Steve had been unwilling to give them to him, too worried about how the boy might react. Now he was partly surprised, but mostly not, to find that Tony immediately put his untouched cocoa down and hugged him back as if clinging to a lifeline, like somebody who'd been starved of any affectionate touch. Of course he had. Howard had certainly not hugged his son in years, and Maria hadn't seen him in months now.

"It's a dangerous line of work, Tony," said Steve. "Sometimes..." he remembered Bucky's terrified face, vanishing into the snow as he plummeted. "Sometimes you can't save everybody." There'd been two of the _Odyssey_ astronauts they hadn't been able to rescue either, but that had been so much more abstract than Dr. Pym, present one day and gone the next.

"Mrs. Pym's been having me watch Hope while she's at physio," Tony whimpered. "Next time she does, I'm gonna have to..."

"You're not going to have to tell Hope anything," Steve assured him. "She probably doesn't even know what her father _does_. She won't know that you were there, and she wouldn't think it was your fault anyway. She's only, what, seven?"

"But Mrs. Pym knows," said Tony, still clinging to Steve. " _She's_ the one I'm gonna have to talk to!"

"I'm sure she doesn't blame you, either," said Steve. "Nobody knows better than Janet that what Hank does is dangerous." No, he corrected himself, not _does is_ , but _did was_. Past tense. He didn't say that out loud, though.

As Tony finally relaxed his grip on Steve, Connie emerged from Natalia's room. As usual, she had been listening to the whole conversation, displaying her uncanny ability to eavesdrop while supposedly otherwise occupied. She grabbed a bottle out of the kitchen and came to pour a little bit of Vodka into the hot chocolate, before offering it to Tony a second time.

"You didn't kill anybody, Tony," she said gently. "Trust me – as somebody who has killed thirty-four people, most of them on purpose, I know."

"That's not very comforting," said Tony, wiping his nose on his sleeve. He looked at the mug and frowned . "After you said _that_ , you expect me to drink your cocoa?"

It was ironic, but Steve was actually happy to hear the sarcasm. If Tony were able to say something like that, he was feeling better already.

Connie took the mug from him and sipped it, then put it in his hands. "Don't worry, the Vodka's not enough to get you drunk, but hopefully the placebo effect will numb you a little," she said. "Now – why did HYDRA fire a missile at Washington?"

Steve had meant to ask that, too, but that intention had been only at the back of his mind as yet. It was much more important to calm and comfort Tony, before he tried to interrogate him. Now that the question had been asked, he realized there was a good possibility Tony wouldn't even know what the answer might be. He was, after all, new at SHIELD and low on the totem pole.

But that was evidently not why Tony looked so uncomfortable about hearing the question. He paused with the mug of hot chocolate halfway to his mouth and his eyes darted back and forth as he tried to think of how to answer – but then he shrugged and took a big drink. "Screw it," he said. "You already know most of the story anyway."

He set the mug down and sat up a bit straighter. "Madame Director couldn't figure it out at first, either. She said even HYDRA's not dumb enough to just start a nuclear war for no reason, and a bunch of guys she apparently pays to just sit around and think about things figured somebody else must've been to the island after we left and had stolen it. But when Dr. Pym got on board, he said the warhead had been removed, and there was one of those time-scrambling devices installed. They didn't want to nuke us, they just wanted to open up a volcano or something."

"What's the difference?" asked Connie, and Steve had to agree. An attack on the US was an attack on the US, whether the weapon was a bomb or, as in the case of the _Ilya Murometz_ , a sudden invasion of matter from another time.

"Well," Tony said, "two times out of three that they've used their time machine, they've been trying to get a hold of the tesseract. I figure they're not still trying to reconstruct it, because even if they haven't gotten that far into the math, they now have repeatable data that shows the tesseract is immune to the effects of their machine. So what they were doing instead, I think, is trying to scramble up everything _near_ the tesseract. That'll incapacitate most of the security around it, and they can just walk into the mess and get it while everybody else runs away from whatever the time machine is spitting out."

That was worryingly plausible, except for one thing. "The tesseract's not in Washington," said Steve. "Peggy told me so herself."

"Maybe she lied." Tony shrugged. He didn't seem to find the idea unlikely – unlike Steve himself, Tony had no illusions about who and what Peggy Carter was.

"Or maybe they made an educated guess," said Connie. "There _is_ a secret chamber under the Pentagon. They've used it to keep important secrets and high-security political prisoners. It's been officially empty since 1973, and it would be a good place to keep the tesseract." She stood up. "I think I know who's guess it was, too."

"Whose?" asked Steve.

Connie smiled a shark's smile, without any humour or cheer in it at all. "Alexander Pearce."

Tony's jaw dropped. "Pearce?" he asked.

"It can't be Pearce," Steve objected. "He's one of Nick Fury's best friends." The two men did non-combat missions and went to Mets games together.

"Madame Director consults him about all kinds of things!" Tony agreed.

"That's why he's so dangerous," Connie said. "One of my assignments when the Red Room sent me to infiltrate SHIELD was to get close to Alexander Pearce, because he's one of HYDRA's most important operatives. He keeps a personal eye on Carter for them. After my cover was blown, he lost a lot of credibility with SHIELD and HYDRA both. Giving them the location of the tesseract would help him regain some standing."

Steve wanted to argue again. He'd never gotten any feeling that Pearce was suspicious, and he didn't like to think that he could have been so blind. Then again, he'd never suspected Eva either, even after he'd learned that she was definitely _some_ kind of spy, so maybe he shouldn't put so much stock in his own gut feelings. Hadn't Pearce been in the room when Peggy said she was going to check on the tesseract? Shortly after, Diane had talked to her about arranging to go to Washington... that was why _Steve_ had assumed the tesseract was there. Why shouldn't Pearce do the same.

"Why didn't you ever tell Peggy about that?" Steve asked, aghast.

"When I was working for the Red Room it was because I hadn't been told to," said Connie. "And since then it's been because she wouldn't believe me if I did. If I told Madame Director that water was wet she'd ask for two independent verifications."

"Why didn't you ever tell _me_?" asked Steve. He was the one she'd wanted working with her against HYDRA.

"Because you never asked," she replied immediately.

Steve scowled. That wasn't an answer – that was an admission that she didn't _have_ an answer. She'd never told him simply because there'd never been any advantage to her in doing so before just now. He opened his mouth to point this out, but Tony spoke first.

" _Somebody's_ gotta tell Madame Director," he said. "If you can't do it and Steve _won't_ do it..."

"I'll do it," said Steve. He hated the idea of telling Peggy a secret after she'd kept so many things from _him_ , but this was much too important to just sit on and sulk.

"No, I'm the one who _works_ for her," said Tony. "It's my responsibility to tell her stuff like that."

"No, definitely not," said Connie. "At least, not the way you're thinking of. It's too dangerous."

"Excuse me?" Tony looked both confused and offended. " _Talking_ to Madame Director is too dangerous?"

"If Pearce finds out who told on him? Yes, it could be," said Connie. "You can do it, but only if you're very, very careful. You can't just walk into her office and blurt it out – you'll be dead within an hour. Don't tell her at work, don't tell her on the phone, and don't let on that you have something important to tell her in either of those places."

"Better yet," Steve broke in, "don't do it at all. I'll do it." He could swallow his pride for something this important. He'd done it before.

Tony, however, was rolling his eyes. "How stupid do you guys think I am? That I can't figure out how to _tell somebody a secret_. Geeze, it hasn't even been a year since I went into _space_ with you," he told Steve. "You didn't think _that_ was too dangerous for me, and yet I can't even have a five minute conversation with Madame Director?"

"Actually, I _did_ think space was too dangerous," said Steve. "But I thought we needed..."

"Yeah, you needed my brain. That's all anybody needs from me!" Tony put down his mug and grabbed his coat. "I'm smart like Dad, so since he's dead you're stuck with me. At least Madame Director _pays_ me for it!" he said, as he shoved his arms into the sleeves. Crusoe scrambled up to his shoulder, not wanting to be left behind.

"Tony." Steve stepped between him and the door. "You know that's not what I meant."

"Then what _did_ you mean?" Tony demanded. "Or is this that thing again where you keep me around because Dad told you to look _after_ me like I'm five years old!"

"No!" said Steve. He'd lost nearly every friend he'd ever had. Howard was dead, Bucky was dead, Peggy was not who he'd thought she was, and he still didn't know if Connie were even his friend to begin with. Tony had walked out scared the other day – he couldn't let him walk out angry now. "Tony, why can't you believe that I want you around because I _like_ you?"

"Because you don't _act_ like you like me!" said Tony. "In the arctic you were like I was some awkward piece of luggage that you only had to bring because there's something important in it! Stay out of the way, Tony, until we need some math done!"

"I don't want you to go out and get killed!" Steve informed him. "I keep an eye on you because I don't want the death of a sixteen-year-old kid on my conscience – and yeah, that means I didn't want you with us in the arctic! Maybe if you'd stayed home I wouldn't have had to murder my best friend to stop him from shooting you!"

The words flooded out before Steve realized he was saying them... or what they sounded like. Then, when he'd heard them and understood them, he actually had to stop and wonder – were they true? _Did_ he blame Tony for making him kill Bucky? Steve didn't _think_ he did. Of all the people involved in that mess, Tony was the _last_ who'd had any idea who Bucky was at the time. But if Steve _didn't_ resent him, then why had he said that?

Steve saw Tony's jaw muscles tense. In moments when he wasn't thinking, Tony often unconsciously imitated his father, but that wasn't one of Howard's gestures. Nevertheless, it was familiar, and after a moment Steve realized it was something _his_ own father had used to do. That meant that if Tony had picked it up from anywhere, it had to be from Steve himself.

"Get out of my way," said Tony coldly.

"Tony," said Steve. He'd made a mistake. He had to apologize.

"Get out of my way!" Tony repeated, and tried to push past Steve. He didn't have a chance of doing so if Steve really wanted to stop him, but Steve did not try. "I'm _sorry_ , okay? I'm sorry I made you choose between him and me! And if _you're_ sorry you picked me, then so am I!" He slammed the door behind him.

Steve stared at the whitewashed wood for a few moments, then put his fist through it. The splintered wood bit into his arm as he pulled it back out and leaned his forehead against the door, furious with himself. He'd meant to remind Tony that he'd saved his life, and maybe to distract him from the idea that all anybody wanted him as was Howard's successor, but then _that_ had come out and it had all gone wrong, and he still wasn't sure _why_ he'd gone and said it the way he had. Steve thought he didn't want to lose any more friends... but it was as if some nasty presence inside him was deliberately pushing them away.

The door of Natalia's room opened and she peeked out, her green eyes wide. "Birdie?" she asked timidly. She wanted to know if Tony had left again without her being allowed to play with Crusoe.

"Not today, _Solnyshka_ ," said Connie. "Maybe next time."

Would there be a next time, Steve wondered. Would Tony ever wanted to talk to him again? "Damn," he said softly. He took his own coat down from its peg and put it on.

"I don't think he wants you to go after him just yet," said Connie, picking up Tony's half-empty mug. "Give him a day or two to cool down."

"I'm not going after him," said Steve. He stepped into his boots and headed out the door, taking the stairs so he could be absolutely sure he would not meet Tony in the elevator or lobby. He was going somewhere else... to try an experiment.

* * *

It was around eleven PM, dark outside, when Connie found him at a bar a few blocks over. Snow was no longer falling, but the wind was picking it up and throwing it into dunes, or swirling it in short-lived miniature tornadoes. Steve was sitting by himself, working his way down a bottle of whiskey. The results so far were depressingly familiar. It tasted all right – between Howard and Peggy, Steve could not have avoided learning to appreciate whiskey – and stung his throat as it went down... but for his mood it did absolutely nothing.

He didn't bother to ask Connie how she'd found him. Steve was convinced she could find anybody she wanted, anywhere in the world. He did, however, wonder why she was here.

"Is this part of the domestic thing?" he asked as she sat down across from him. "The little wife come to drag her drunk-ass husband home?"

"More like sugar baby come to find her sugar daddy," said Connie calmly. She unwound her scarf and looked at the whiskey bottle. "How's it going?"

"Badly," said Steve.

"I figured." She nodded. "Our intelligence on you from the war suggested that your cells would process alcohol so fast it wouldn't have any effect on you. Would you be flattered to know we put years of research into trying to figure out how to drug you if we ever needed to?"

"No," said Steve, "but I wouldn't be surprised, either." He tried repeating the question in a different form. "Were you actually worried about me?" he asked. "Or just..." Steve wasn't sure how to finish that sentence. He didn't know what the relationship between him and Connie was. She kept up the pretense of being his friend and room-mate, but she was probably just using him as a way to keep Natalia safe. But why bother asking – even if she told the truth, how would he know? Was he really _that_ desperate for a friend right now?

"Well, if you don't come back, I have to find a job," said Connie. "So there's that, and I thought by now you might have calmed down enough to talk about it. I'm a good listener. If I can tease out pieces of information that people didn't know they were giving away, I can be an ear for someone who's upset, and I know you've got a lot on your mind."

"What's there to talk about?" asked Steve. "You already know the whole story. I killed my best friend because Peggy didn't tell me it was him, and now my _second_ -best friend thinks I just told him it was his fault."

"And that wasn't what you meant?" she asked.

"Of course it wasn't what I meant!" Steve said. "What, are you my psychologist now?" They'd tried to get him to talk to a psychologist during the war a couple of times, just to make sure the serum wasn't having any odd effects on his brain. Steve had never had the patience for it... which was possibly why, he realized, Peggy had never even suggested it once they'd thawed him out. Maybe she should have.

"No, although I probably could be if you wanted one. I can be just about anything." Connie poured herself a drink from his whiskey bottle. " _Do_ you blame Tony?"

Good question. Steve still didn't know. "I don't think so," he said finally. "I think I was just mad at him over-reacting when all I wanted was to keep him safe, and I wanted to say something nasty. I'll apologize." When he saw Tony again. _If_ he saw Tony again.

"Who are you _really_ angry at?" Connie wanted to know.

"I don't know. Yes I do," Steve said. "I'm mad at myself. I was supposed to be the first of an army of supermen who would save the world. When they brought me back Peggy said the world still needed Captain America. And yet all I've done in either of those capacities is screw up." Steve refilled his own glass. "Can _you_ get drunk?"

"Technically yes, but I know how to pace myself," said Connie.

"I screwed up once and got Bucky killed," Steve said. "When I came back I screwed up and got Howard killed... believe me, I was glad to find out he hadn't killed _himself_ , but if I hadn't found those tapes in Dvenadstat, it would never have happened. I darned near got Tony killed. Now I screwed up and killed Bucky _myself_... and then when I try to stay out of things and _not_ get people killed, Pym dies and leaves his wife and his little daughter. All I had to do differently was say _yes_ on the damn phone."

"Whatever happened to Hank wasn't your fault either," Connie said. "Like you said to Tony, you weren't there. You had no control over that situation."

Steve sighed. "Why do you even care?" he asked, more tired than angry anymore. "Is it just because I'm your meal ticket?"

"I prefer to think of you as my ally," said Connie. "It sounds more polite."

"The enemy of my enemy is useful, but not a friend," Steve said. That was the maxim she seemed to live by.

"Oh, I don't have friends," Connie agreed. "I had _that_ beaten out of me by the time I was nine. Do you want us to leave?" she asked. "If you do, Natalia and I will go first thing in the morning, but I think you'll be pretty lonely on your own."

She was right – without Connie and Natalia to look after, Steve probably wouldn't see any reason to get out of bed in the morning. As a young man in the Brooklyn of the early 1940's, Steve had been constantly cold, sick, and broke, but he'd kept on regardless because he'd wanted to _live_. In the Manhattan of the mid-1980's he had a warm home, a healthy body, and enough money for a while... but no motivation at all.

"No. You can stay," he said. He did notice that she hadn't phrased her argument in terms of what would happen to _her_ if she went... but he didn't feel like asking her about it.

"Then come home," said Connie. "I hate to sound cliché, but a good night's sleep will help you clear your head. Tony can get one, too, and in a couple of days you two will be ready to talk to each other and figure out what we're gonna do next about the crazy Nazis who want to take over the world."

Of course, _that_ was what she wanted. HYDRA and their time machine were still out there, and somebody was still going to have to stop them from doing whatever it was they were gonna try to do next. Why did _somebody_ have to be Steve?

He leaned on the table and stared at the nameless stains on it. "I want to crawl back into the freezer and sleep for another forty years," he said. "Maybe I'll be able to get this right the _third_ time around." Or maybe by 2025 humanity would have finally destroyed itself, and nobody would think the world still needed Captain America.

Connie took his arm and helped him up, although he didn't need it. "Come on," she said. "Forty years is a bit much, but eight hours is a start."

She helped him outside, and they walked back to the apartment. It wasn't far, but the wind was cold, and the snow it kicked up rasped the cheeks like frozen sandpaper. Once inside, Connie took Steve's coat and hat and hung them up.

"I don't need help," he said. It was so tempting, though, just to give in to the domestic fantasy. Just for one night.

"Yes, you do," she said firmly.

"You're faking it," Steve told her. "You're softening me up while I'm vulnerable."

"I'm pretty good at it," she agreed. She put his boots on the radiator to dry. "I want to keep the only ally I have."

"Then why _tell_ me that's all you want?" Steve asked. "Why not lie to me and tell me you love me or something?" It must have been blindingly obvious that Steve needed a friend right now. Why would she try to step into those shoes at the same time as reminding him that they didn't fit her?

"Because you don't like being lied to," said Connie. She came and took his arm again. "We've established I can't drug you, so you have to actually lie down and shut your eyes, okay?"

He gave up and let her escort him into the bedroom. Usually she slept in there while he took the sofa, while Natalia had a child's bed they'd bought second-hand and set up in the other room. Connie had suggested before that as the guy with his name on the lease, Steve could relegate _her_ to the couch if he felt like it, but he'd always replied that she was a guest and it would not have been polite. Tonight he didn't have the energy to argue about it, and she probably wouldn't have allowed it if he'd tried.

Steve got his pajamas out, then turned to look over his shoulder at her as she left the room again. "Connie," he said. "I swear – I didn't know Peggy would treat Natalia the way she did. I never thought she had that in her."

She nodded. "I never thought _Zima_ might be somebody you knew. I should have, but I didn't." Maybe it was foolish of him, but he believed her.


	24. Chapter 24: Time Machine

When the snow finally stopped, it left New York under a deep layer of white that had to be cleared away, slowly and painfully, over the course of a couple of days. The work was slow, but by the end of Thursday the subways had been pumped out and were running again, and soon there was traffic back on the streets. Meanwhile, the city's schoolchildren took advantage of their snow day, flocking to the lake or Rockefeller Center to go ice skating, or to the park for snowball fights, snowmen, and snow angels.

Steve, gazing at the view out his window, thought the city had probably never looked so _clean_ as it did under that sparkling coat of snow.

Natalia seemed especially excited by the change in the weather. She must remember playing in the snow from Russia, which was surprising in light of her age – Steve certainly didn't have any memories of being that young. The morning news showed kids playing around the frozen Bethesda Fountain, and as soon as she saw them Natalia was on her feet, begging to be allowed outside.

"I don't think so, _Solnyshka_ ," said Connie gently. "It's cold and wet. Besides... there are probably still people looking for us." Steve had almost forgotten over the past couple of months that Connie and Natalia were technically still in hiding, but Connie herself never had.

" _Bud'te dobry_ , _Konyshka_?" Natalia begged. " _It'll melt, and I won't get to play at all!_ "

Her blue eyes were huge and pleading, and Steve couldn't bear the sight. _He_ still felt trapped and generally terrible, but that was no reason why anybody _else_ should. The fresh air would probably do him good. "What if I came with you?" he asked. "I'll keep an eye out."

Natalia brightened and grabbed Connie's hand. " _Bud'te dobry_!" she insisted. "Please!"

Connie looked over at Steve, and he gave her one now – he had no intention of letting anything happen. With both him and Connie looking out for her, Natalia ought to be fine. With a sigh, Connie set the saucepan she'd been washing on the drying rack. "All right," she said.

"Hooray!" said Natalia, and ran to get her winter clothes.

"I didn't mean right now!" Connie protested. "Let me at least finish drying the dishes!"

"I'll help," said Steve, and heaved himself off the couch. He should have been helping anyway... he knew he still _had_ the energy to do things, he just had to find the _motivation_ , and that was the hard part. It had been a little easier to get out of bed the past few days, but only out of curiosity over what had happened while he was sleeping. That was why they'd been watching the news, so that Steve could learn if there'd been any more disasters he could have prevented. None of the stations had mentioned a missile heading for Washington, averted or not. Dr. Pym's death was noted, supposedly of a heart attack. And there'd been something about a plane crash over the Atlantic, with footage of rescue workers at sea. Steve wondered if that were related... and if it were, what exactly it was they were looking for.

He also wondered if Tony had found an opportunity to tell Peggy about Pearce, but of course _that_ hadn't been on the news. Maybe he should call Tony and apologize for what he'd said, and ask about it, but he couldn't make himself get around to that yet. The moment of panicked action when Connie had first revealed the connection had melted away, and was apparently irretrievable.

Now, with effort, Steve made himself get up and dry dishes for Connie. Then, pushing himself along at every step, he put on his boots and coat to follow her and Natalia outside. The little girl stood on her toes to press the elevator button, and at the bottom she nearly dragged the two adults out in her hurry to get to the park.

Once there, however, she turned shy. There were other children playing in the snow on the Great Hill, and Natalia hung back from joining them, hiding behind Connie. Was she just being coy, or did she have some legitimate reason to associate them with danger?

Connie knelt down to adjust Natalia's scarf. "None of these boys or girls will hurt you," she said in a soft, kind voice. "Nobody makes children fight in America. You can go play with them if you want."

"Promise?" asked Natalia.

"I promise. I'll come with you." Connie stood up again, and took the little girl's hand to lead her out onto the field. "They're making snow angels over there. Why don't you ask them how? You can practice your English."

Steve brushed some snow off the nearest bench and sat down,but kept his head up and looked around for hiding places. The park was, of course, surrounded by tall buildings. If somebody were inside, he could even be relatively warm while he took aim. They were pretty far from the Hill, and it would take a good shot to do it without killing a bystander... but Bucky could have done it. If he could, there must be other people who could, too.

Why sit in a building two hundred yards away, though, when there were much closer places? The North Woods were just a few steps away, and while the trees weren't very good cover, the thickets under them would be. A person wearing the appropriate winter camouflage could crouch in there for hours, unseen by people only yards away. The shooter would have to wait until Connie or Natalia got to the near side of the hill, and have to be very careful not to hit somebody else who'd wandered in front of the target... but it was certainly possible.

Connie was clearly aware of it, too. She and Natalia made snow angels and then set about building a crude snowman, but she was always crouching, always staying low to the ground and close to groups of other children. Natalia was merely playing, but Connie was trying to be difficult to hit.

It was while looking around for suspicious people that Steve noticed the woman in the green parka.

She was wearing black high-heeled boots and a thick scarf that covered most of her face, and the hood of her coat was up with the zipper pulled right to the top of the high collar. It rendered her almost entirely anonymous and with everybody else in the park similarly bundled up against the winter cold, she didn't stand out at all. There was something about the authoritative way she walked, however, that attracted Steve's attention. Something _familiar_ in that purposeful stride.

He looked her right in the eye. She looked right back, and held the eye contact as she came closer and sat down beside him. There was a mole above her eyebrow, and upon seeing it, Steve put a name to her. This was the woman who called herself Viper.

Steve sat silently for a moment. He was still angry with her. Of course he was. She was his enemy. Yet at the same time, in this particular situation he didn't know what he could do about it. The bad guys didn't just sit down to talk to you in a park full of children, did they? Even if they did, what was the proper way to react? If he tried to take her into custody, he'd be attacking an apparently unarmed woman in public, and he knew better than to believe she would come here alone.

Was she here to kill _him_? She was a poisoner – she'd nearly killed him that way once already. Had that been the whole purpose behind having Eva Natter try to start a relationship with him? Bocharov had said his brother had been murdered at Bob Barnum's party in Oslo... had she been behind that?

She pulled the scarf away from her face. Her breath had frozen on it in a crust of little crystals. "Chilly out, isn't it, Captain?" she observed.

Steve might not have known how to respond to this, but he _knew_ it wouldn't be by making small talk. "What do you want?" he asked. "How did you find me here?"

"We've been watching you for weeks," Viper replied calmly, as if they were still chatting about the weather. "Zola was afraid that your quitting SHIELD was an attempt to trick us into making a move, but it appears not. That's not important, though. I'm here to make you an offer."

"You have nothing to offer me," said Steve. He turned away, to look back at Natalia and Connie. Natalia was still happily rolling in the snow, but Connie had noticed Viper, and was crouched there watching. Suddenly _she_ was _his_ bodyguard. That made him feel a bit better.

"You have everything you need, do you?" asked Viper.

"No," said Steve, "but I have everything I'm likely to get. Don't try to tell me she's using me," he added. "I _know_ she's using me."

Viper sniffed. "I wasn't about to," she said. "I know you're not a fool. A fool couldn't have defeated Schmidt twice – which I must say was the greatest favour you could possibly have done for us. Schmidt was a madman. HYDRA is much better off without him, corporeal or not."

"So this is the _we're not so different, you and I_ speech, is it?" Steve asked. He'd heard that one before.

"No, not at all," she said. "It's more of a congratulations, actually. The Stark kid was right – we were trying to reconstruct the tesseract using Zola's machine. When that didn't work, the intrusion of the _Ilya Murometz_ gave us the idea to hold America to ransom so that Madame Director would be _forced_ to give it up, but you chased us out of the base and your friends ruined the missiles. We managed to get one working again, but Pym managed to ruin that, too. So as much as I'd like to shoot you right here, I have to say, well done. I could never understand how we lost the war when _we_ were the ones who had the tesseract. Now I do."

"Most of it wasn't me," said Steve. Flattery had never been something he responded well to. People flattered him by ignoring the contributions of others.

"More of it was you than you think," Viper told him. "You need to stop focusing on what you've lost."

Steve sat up straight and glared at her. "Don't you _dare_ try to talk to me about Bucky," he warned. Of all the people who might do such a thing, she was the _last_ one who was allowed.

 _This_ was who he ought to be blaming for that, he realized. Not Connie, not Tony, not even himself – but HYDRA. They were the ones who'd experimented on him, tortured the mind and will out of him, and left a shell for the Russians to fill with murder. HYDRA and the USSR had put Bucky in a place where Steve had felt the only way to save Tony was to kill him. Even Peggy, whom he was still angry with, did not deserve his hatred as much as they did.

Whether Viper could see the cold anger in Steve's eyes, he didn't know – but if she could, she still met his gaze without blinking. "That's not why I'm here," she said.

"Then why _are_ you here?" Steve demanded. "It wasn't to thank me, or congratulate me! You're obviously working up to something so just tell me and get it over with!"

She shrugged. "I was going to suggest that SHIELD is our common enemy, but now that I'm actually sitting next to you, I don't think that's going to convince." She stood up. "In which case, I'll just leave you with some advice, from somebody who actually does rather like you as a person even if I can't agree with your politics: don't dwell on the past. You can't change the past." She laughed bitterly. "I have a _time machine_ and even _I_ can't change the past! All I can do is bring bits of it into the present!"

Steve jumped to his feet as if a bolt of electricity had run up his spine. If Viper knew about Bucky, then she must know where Steve's mind would go when she said that. Sure enough, she was looking right into his eyes – and she was smiling.

"What do you want?" Steve asked in a low growl, grabbing her by the shoulders.

Viper lifted her chin. She knew she was in control of the situation. "We've run out of power," she said. "The tesseract energy Zola managed to squirrel away after the war? We put the last of it on the missile we were sending to Washington. We hoped that would cause enough chaos that we could just walk, but now our last canister is on the bottom of the ocean, if SHIELD hasn't already retrieved it. If we're ever going to use the time manipulation device again, we need a power source."

Steve felt his throat closing. His chest was tight. It was hard work to speak, even to breathe. The entire world had narrowed to him and Viper standing there by the bench. If somebody _had_ shot Connie and Natalia on the hill, he wouldn't have even noticed. "And you're implying that in return, you can get Bucky back," he said.

It was ridiculous. He couldn't possibly agree. He could _not_ give the tesseract to HYDRA no matter what they offered him. And yet...

"Maybe," said Viper. "I can't make promises. We've never tried to use it for that before, although there's been some talk of getting Zola his body back. It's difficult to aim for a specific moment. But if we can refine it a little, we could get you Barnes back as you remember him, before he became the Winter Soldier.

That wouldn't be right, Steve thought. That would be the same damn thing that had happened to _him_ – snatched into the future with no explanation. Crusoe seemed to have adapted, but Crusoe was an animal who didn't know what decade she was in to begin with. As long as there was food around, she was fine. Buck was a _person_ , and it wouldn't be fair to drag him out of the 1940's and into the 1980's without asking if that were what he wanted.

But they _could_ snatch him out of the harbour on Gunnysack Island in the moments before Steve broke his neck. They could find out if there were anything left of James Buchanan Barnes, and if there were, get him the help he needed. They could...

No, they _couldn't_. What was he thinking? Steve couldn't give the tesseract to HYDRA, that was absurd!

"Go away," he told Viper, letting go of her arms. "The answer is no."

She stepped back and put her scarf back on. "I think you can figure out where to find us if you change your mind," she said, and walked away.

Steve dropped back onto the cold metal bench and sat there, staring at nothing, his heart racing. If there were _one thing_ in his life that he wished he could take back, _one thing_ he wished he could have a second chance at... but why stop at one? Howard had believed the tesseract's power was practically limitless. Janet Pym must have been devastated by her husband's death, and Hope by the loss of her father. Why not get Hank back while he was at it? And Tony... his mother couldn't marry Obadiah Stane if her husband suddenly came home. There'd probably be a lot of awkward paperwork involved in bringing somebody back from the dead, but wouldn't it be worth it if Tony and Howard could get a second chance to work out their strained relationship?

"Steve!" said Connie.

He sat up, startled. "What?"

Connie was standing over him, looking terrified. Natalia was clinging to her leg. "What did she say to you?" Connie asked.

"She... offered me a reward if I could bring her the tesseract," said Steve. "I told her no. You two can go back and play if you want." It would give him time to think a little.

"No," said Connie carefully. "No, I think we'd better all go home. Don't you agree, Natalia?"

"Yes, _Konyshka_ ," said Natalia.

"All right," said Steve, and got up again. He didn't care either way, he decided – against his own better judgment, he was starting to come up with a plan. It was a plan that would involve a lot of apologies he really didn't want to make, but the results would hopefully be worth it. Peggy had always thought he was terrible at plans. She would have been horrified by this one.

* * *

For the rest of the day, Connie kept watching Steve out of the corner of her eye whenever she did things like cooking or reading to Natalia. She was always watching him, of course, but now he was _noticing_ it, which meant that she must _want_ him to notice. She knew he was planning something, and she could probably guess what it was, and she wanted him to know she was worried.

He ignored her. If he told her about his idea, she would have tried to talk him out of it. He couldn't let her do that, especially when he hadn't yet decided if he were even going to _try_ it. Before he got her opinion, Steve wanted to have the whole thing worked out in his head.

There _was_ somebody whose help he wanted right away, though. Steve wasn't a very patient person, so it was that very evening that he went and knocked on Tony's door.

"Tony!" he called. "It's Steve!"

He was still afraid the only answer would be orders to go away – but instead the door opened, and Tony looked out at him, blinking in surprise and confusion. "Why are you here?" the young man asked. "I thought you were never gonna speak to me again."

Tony had thought _Steve_ was mad at _him_? Steve wasn't sure how much sense that made when _Steve_ was the one who'd insulted _Tony_... but if Tony were willing to drop it, then Steve was, too. "Did you tell Peggy about Pearce?" he asked urgently.

"Yeah," said Tony. He was still standing in the doorway, looking out cautiously as if afraid Steve were going to barge his way in with violence. Probably not unreasonable, considering some of the things Steve had said and done recently. "We went up the street to get lunch, and I told her there. She wanted to know how I found out, so I told her, and she said she didn't want to believe such a serious allegation without proof. She's watching him now. I've been trying to pretend nothing happened." Judging from the dark circles under his eyes, it was wearing on him... and he hadn't had anybody to turn to, because he thought Steve really did blame him for Bucky's death.

"Listen to me," said Steve. "I need your help."

Was that the wrong thing to say? Was it going to sound to Tony like Steve _still_ only wanted him around because of his brain?

Maybe not, because Tony opened the door wider to let him in. "What happened?" he asked.

Steve could feel their argument still hanging in the air, but apparently Tony was just going to ignore it, so Steve would, too. "Viper came to talk to me," Steve said. He stepped inside and shut the door after him. "She made me an offer and I said no, but it gave me an idea." He took a deep breath, trying not to notice that Tony's apartment was a mess, or that the garbage was full of paper plates because he preferred to throw those away rather than to do dishes. Tony needed somebody to look after him, but that wasn't why Steve was here. "If you could have your Dad back, Tony... would you?"

"What?" Tony asked. "That's... it doesn't matter. Because it's impossible." He frowned, worried now about Steve's sanity.

"Yes, it is," said Steve. "Tony, HYDRA's got a _time machine_."

Without even bothering to sit down, he outlined his plan. What Viper had been suggesting, and what Steve wanted to do instead. Tony's big brown eyes got larger and larger, and his face paler and paler, and Crusoe flapped her wings and fanned her tail as she sensed his agitation.

"So that's why I need you," Steve said. "You'll have to..."

"Dude." Tony put out a hand. "Have I made you watch _Return of the Jedi_?"

Now it was Steve's turn to say, "what?" How was that relevant. "Was that the one with the green elf creature that could make things fly with its mind?"

"No," said Tony. "That was the one with the fish-man yelling _it's a trap_!"

"I don't remember that one," Steve said.

"Well, it bears repeating!" Tony told him. " _It's a trap_!"

"I _know_ it's a trap," Steve assured him. "That's why I'm not doing it the way they suggested. I need your help, Tony. We can bring down HYDRA _and_ save the people they killed!"

"Won't that change the... no, it won't change the past," Tony corrected himself. "Because they don't actually take things _out_ of the past, they reconstruct them in the present." He looked down at Crusoe, clinging upside-down to his sweater sleeve. _She_ seemed to be all right, despite her journey across millions of years. "What about... when they do that with things, they get stuck in anything that's already there in the present. Like you had to cut Crusoe's wing off to get her off the pipe. What if that happens to Dad?"

Steve hadn't forgotten that. He doubted he'd ever forget the man called Bear, stuck in the giant tree at the _Achilles_. "We'll be careful," he promised. "We'll clear the area out and make sure we're ready. Your Mom can't marry Stane if your Dad comes back."

Tony bit his lip. Steve could see him struggling. "Every movie I've ever watched says this is a terrible idea," he said.

"You said stealing a space shuttle was the worst idea you'd ever heard, but also the best," Steve reminded him.

"That was last year," said Tony. "I hadn't actually been to space, then." He fought with himself a moment longer, and then Steve could see, in the sudden stiffening of his shoulders, the moment when he made up his mind. "What do you need me to do?"

Steve pulled a chair out from Tony's kitchen table and sat down. "Remember when I had to let you into SHIELD because you didn't have clearance but needed to see Peggy?" he asked. "Now I need you to do that for _me_. Don't call ahead, I want to talk to her in person." It would be easier to garner sympathy that way, and would give Peggy less opportunity to think out her lies ahead of time.

"When?" Tony asked.

"As soon as possible," Steve told him.

* * *

They went on Saturday. They went late in the morning, to avoid rush hour, and Tony showed his ID card to the man at the door. Steve supposed that as Captain America, he could have just walked in, but it had to be common knowledge among the employees that he didn't officially work there anymore, and somebody would definitely have told Peggy. He wanted to surprise her, but not by just barging into her office this time – that was frowned upon and, unlike Steve in those first few weeks, Tony might be reprimanded for it. Instead, Tony went to the elevator to go tell her she had a visitor, while Steve himself waited in the office. He sat down on one of the benches around the indoor trees and pretended to read a newspaper, trying to be inconspicuous. It wasn't something Steve had ever been good at.

Sure enough, somebody noticed him almost immediately. When Steve glanced over the top of his paper he realized that the woman who appeared to be checking her makeup on the bench across the way was actually looking out of the corner of her eye, trying to figure out if he were really who she thought it was. It was Janet Pym.

He should not have looked up. As soon as she was sure she recognized him, she got up and came to sit beside him.

"Captain Rogers," she said. "I'm surprised to see you here. I thought you quit."

"I did. I, uh, had second thoughts," Steve replied. "I was sorry to hear about Hank, by the way." For a moment he wondered if he ought to try to get _her_ help for his plan. She was the other person who'd recently lost someone dear to them, and Pym's technology could be very useful. Unfortunately, Steve didn't know Janet well enough to know how she might react. Maybe she would go straight to Peggy and ruin the whole thing.

"Thank you," she said, and lowered her head with an awkward smile. "I... still don't quite believe it, honestly. I keep hoping I'll come home and find him standing in the living room. It wouldn't be the first time."

Guilt tugged at Steve's chest. "I'm sorry I wasn't there," he said. "Maybe if I had been..."

But Janet shook her head. "Tony told me Madame Director called you first," she said. "Don't blame yourself, Captain Rogers. It wasn't your fault." She sighed. "In all honesty, no matter what anybody says... it was mine."

That was the last thing Steve had expected to hear. " _Yours_?"

"I was the idiot who went and broke my collarbone on the _Achilles_ ," said Janet. "If I hadn't still been in physio, both of us would have gone to meet that missile. Hank's regulator was broken. He could still use the suit, he just couldn't change the settings, so since I wasn't using mine, he swapped them out before he left. If we'd both been there... somebody needed to wiggle between the molecules to get at the mechanism, and whoever did was going to be stuck down there." She looked up again, tears in her eyes. "If we'd both been there, it would have had to be me."

Steve wanted to hug her, but again, he didn't feel he knew her well enough. "Hank wouldn't want you to blame yourself," he said. Bucky wouldn't have wanted Steve to blame _himself_ , either, and yet here he was.

"I know," said Janet. "That doesn't make it any less my fault. I'm sorry," she added, standing up again. "I'm sure you... you don't need to hear about my problems. You've got enough on your own plate right now." She smiled. "If _you_ ever need somebody to talk to, you're welcome to unload on me. I actually sort of miss listening to somebody rant about things."

Her smile was so sad... so different from the bubbly woman who'd been the perfect foil to Hank's cantankerous arrogance. Steve _had_ to do this, he thought. Not just for himself and Tony, but for Janet and Hope too. "Thanks," he said. "I might take you up on that sometime, but not today."

"Of course," said Janet, and if reading his mind, she offered her arms. After a moment's hesitation, Steve got up and hugged her. He _would_ get Hank back for her. He _would_.

A few minutes after Janet had left, Tony returned. "Madame Director says you can come up any time," he said.

Steve put down his newspaper again. "All right," he said, getting to his feet. "Here goes nothing. What did you tell her?"

"I said you wanted to talk to her, but I didn't know what about," said Tony. "I think she figures she's got a chance to apologize."

Steve didn't think she deserved that, but he would take the opportunity it offered him. "Are you okay?" he asked. Tony was breathing hard.

"I'm fine," Tony said, too fast to sound sincere. "This isn't like when we went into space, is it? That was... that was kind of an adventure. This is... we're gonna get in trouble for this." His hand shook as he pressed the elevator button.

"We got in plenty of trouble on _Intrepid_ ," said Steve, putting a reassuring hand on Tony's shoulder.

"But we thought we were just gonna rescue some astronauts," said Tony. "We weren't expecting to find a guy possessed by a crazy dead Nazi."

Steve had never believed that they were _only_ going to rescue the astronauts. He was glad, however, that Tony seemed to have a better idea now of the risk inherent in the sort of things he did. Maybe it would discourage Tony from taking such risks himself.

The door of Peggy's office was, unusually, open. She was standing behind her desk, hands folded in front of her, waiting nervously like a girl about to go on a first date. For a moment Steve felt bad that he was about to lie to her. Then he remembered all the times she'd lied to _him_ , and suddenly it didn't seem so bad anymore.

Steve wasn't good at lying and never had been, so he'd sat down and thought through in advance what he was going to say today. He'd practiced in the mirror, just as he had long ago before going off to apply for military service, and had included as much of the truth as possible. He had to do this _right_ , because he would only get one chance.

"Steve." Peggy stepped forward, a tentative smile on her lips. "I'm glad to see you."

"I'm glad to see you, too," said Steve. That was the first lie. Now for some truth. "I'm sorry about Dr. Pym."

"Don't blame yourself," Peggy told him. The words almost didn't mean anything anymore. "We've talked about this."

They had – forty years ago, when Bucky fell. "What about your undercover guy?" he asked.

He saw Peggy's back straighten, just a bit – she hadn't expected him to say that. "We're watching him. You know I don't consider Agent Fyodorova a reliable source," she said, with just a hint of reproach.

"Yes, I know," said Steve. "I just wanted to be sure you'd gotten the message."

"I always take precautions," said Peggy.

Now it was time to get to the point. "Viper came to see me the other day," Steve said.

Peggy drew in a sudden breath – it was too quiet to be a _gasp_ , but it was very close. "Whatever for?"

"To gloat, mostly," said Steve. "She did confirm that Zola is still alive, although I'm not sure in what form. She said something about him wanting his body back. The most important thing, however..." he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "She said HYDRA knows where the tesseract is."

"They couldn't possibly!" Peggy protested. "It's a trick."

"That's what Tony thought," Steve agreed. "Of course it's a trick. They want you to move the thing so that they can take it." He lowered his voice, remembering her fears about listening ears. "So we're going to catch them in their own trap."

Peggy studied his face for a moment, and then a smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. "Let's go for a drive," she said.


	25. Chapter 25: Pellucidar

Tony was waiting outside the office. Steve nodded to him as they passed, telling him that everything was going according to plan so far. Tony nodded back – if that were the case, he had stuff to do.

Steve and Peggy got into a car, and somebody drove them to the outskirts of Brooklyn, far away from the crowded streets of Manhattan and hopefully from anyone who might be listening in. When she felt safe, Peggy leaned forward in her seat and asked Steve, who was across from her, "did she say where they thought it was?"

"No," Steve said. "The way I figure, we have to do two or three fake moves. If we only do one, that's obviously a trap, but too many more and they won't be willing to spread themselves that thin. Three sounds about right. They won't suspect that all of them are equally fake, especially if all three are carefully undercover and all going on at the same time."

"I wouldn't take what HYDRA will or will not suspect for granted," said Peggy, "but hopefully we can make it tempting enough that they'll try it anyway. I'll have people get to work at once." She reached hesitantly for his hand. Steve offered it, at the same time as he squirmed at the idea of letting her think he'd forgiven her. "Thank you for coming back, Steve," she said.

"Thank you for taking me back," he said – and then it was time for the most difficult lie of all. "You were right, I belong here. But I need to know I can trust you, Peggy, and I need to know that _you_ trust _me_. Because we just can't keep doing this if we don't trust one another."

She nodded quietly. "Of course."

"Where is it, Peg?"

He could see her steel herself. "It's in Pellucidar." She looked at Steve's face to see if he'd understood that, and could tell that he hadn't. It was the name of a fictional kingdom at the centre of the Earth in a book by one of Bucky's favourite authors – now that he thought of it, Steve could remember his friend loaning a copy to Peggy once. As a code name it probably denoted something underground, but beyond that Steve had no idea. "That's a bunker under the Stanley Springs Hotel in Tennessee."

Something inside Steve fluttered. There it was. He'd done it. "Then none of the fake moves can be anywhere near there," he said. "Not even on the same coast if we can help it."

"Agreed," Peggy gave a sharp nod.

* * *

The next several days were spent in planning the moves. All three would start at Edwards Air Force Base in California – if HYDRA decided on an all-out assault when they realized they'd been tricked, Edwards ought to be more than able to defend themselves. One of the fake tesseracts would be taken to a secret base in Nevada. A second would head north to Grand Coulee. The third would go to an underground facility near Colorado Springs. All three would start out as a single convoy and then split up, each with a large truck that _might_ be used to transport something secret, but which would really be full of SHIELD agents, ready to take the operatives into custody.

Each would also be followed by a large man on a motorcycle, with an aluminum shield on his back. Steve would go _into_ Edwards, but would not leave with the convoy. He would arrive by helicopter once they had prisoners, to see if he recognized any of them from Gunnysack Island.

That was the plan, at least – only Steve knew that it wasn't going to happen that way. Everything _he_ had set out to do would be finished long before then.

Now that he knew where the tesseract _was_ , the next step would be getting in for a look at it. Steve would need help with that. Janet Pym might have provided it, but Steve still wasn't sure how much of a security risk she might be. Fortunately, he knew another woman with some rather singular skills.

Steve came home on Tuesday night, and found Connie reading a story in English to Natalia, helping the little girl to sound out the words. Steve was rather impressed – Natalia was only around three years old, and that was very young to be _almost_ reading, never mind reading what was still something of a foreign language to her. He didn't have time to take joy in her achievement, though. He hung up his coat, and sat down on the edge of the coffee table.

"Connie," he said. "I need a favour."

She raised her head cautiously. "What kind of a favour?" Like Steve, she was wise enough not to promise something before she knew exactly what it involved.

"Tony and I need to get into Pellucidar."

He'd assumed she would know what that meant, but her initial reaction was a confused frown. "There's nothing in there except a lot of crackers and canned soup," she said, but then her eyes widened. "Unless... the tesseract?"

"Yes," said Steve.

"You're going to steal it," Connie said flatly. It wasn't even really an accusation, more a simple statement of fact – she figured he would do it with or without her help.

"I'm going to _borrow_ it," Steve corrected her. "I'll put it back afterwards."

"What are you going to do with it?" Connie asked.

"Run HYDRA's time machine and get Bucky back," said Steve.

"That's a terrible idea," she told him.

"So I'm told," Steve nodded.

She leaned forward, putting her hands on his neck as if about to strangle him – but all she actually did was kiss him. It was tender but very brief, and less an expression of affection than one of trust. "When do we leave?" she asked.

"As soon as possible," Steve said. "We need to get this done before Peggy realized I'm up to something."

Connie rolled her eyes. "Then we'd better get on with it. From what I've seen of Madame Director, she knew what you were up to before _you_ did."

"That's probably true," Steve agreed. He hadn't thought of that yet, but Peggy knew him so well... what if she had people waiting for him at the Stanley Springs when they arrived? What if she were there _herself_? Even as angry at her as he still was, did Steve have it in him to remove her from his way as he might have to do? There was probably only one way to find out, and he could only hope it wouldn't come to that.

* * *

Before they left, at around noon the next day, they had to find a babysitter for Natalia. Steve knew Connie trusted Janet, but Janet would have wanted to know what was going on, so instead they chose somebody who was used to not knowing what Steve was up to – the Wilsons next door. The only problem with this arrangement was that Natalia barely knew them, and didn't want to stay. She clung to Connie in the hallway, not wanting to be left behind.

Connie gave Darlene an apologetic look – the neighbour was waiting patiently in the doorway, with baby Sam in her arms. "It's okay," she said. "We see kids who don't want to be left at the church daycare sometimes... fifteen minutes after their parents go, they're distracted and they're just fine."

"She's just used to staying with Janet and Hope," said Connie. She squatted down next to Natalia and stroked her red curls. "You see Mrs. Wilson all the time," she reminded her. "And you can play with Sam! They can show you what his favourite games are."

"I don't want you to go," Natalia repeated, hanging on tight to Connie's hand.

Connie took a deep breath, and when she spoke again, it was in Russian. " _Solnyshka_ ," she said, " _I need you to stay with Mrs. Wilson and be brave, because Steve and I need to go save the world again. Can you do that?_ "

Natalia was silent for a moment, then let go of Connie and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. " _Da, Konyshka_ ," she said.

"That's my little _printsessa_ ," said Connie, and kissed the top of her head. "I'll be back soon, I promise." She stood up.

"I love you, _Konyshka_!" said Natalia.

Connie smiled and blew her another kiss, but said nothing aloud as she joined Steve and Tony to leave.

"We're not saving the world," Steve said, as they got in the elevator.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Connie replied. She pressed the button for the ground floor.

Steve supposed that might be true. If HYDRA won this, it would be the end of the world as they knew it – they _had_ to get it right. Was the result Steve hoped to achieve really worth the risks he was taking?

Yes. Yes, it was.

It was too risky to take Steve's car, and Tony didn't own one yet, although he claimed he was saving up. Instead, they hotwired one that belonged to a neighbour across the street. The car was a very unremarkable blue Honda Prelude, one that could hopefully sit in a lot for days and not be noticed. Steve got it running, while Tony tossed their equipment in the back.

"A guy named Meinhardt taught me," said Steve. "And I'll tell you what I told him – we're _borrowing_ the car. The owner will get it back."

"How?" asked Tony.

"I'll figure that out," said Steve. He got in the driver's seat, while Connie climbed in the other side. At least, he thought as Tony slammed the back trunk, they were _prepared_ this time. Last time Steve and Tony had set out to steal from the US Government, they'd gone to commandeer the space shuttle _Intrepid_ with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. Now they had equipment and supplies. They weren't going to reach low Earth orbit and realize they'd forgotten to pack food. Definitely a step in the right direction.

"What are we gonna do when we get there?" Tony asked, climbing in the back. "How are we getting into the bunker?" Connie had given them a list of what they'd need, but not much idea what they'd be doing with any of it. She'd said the discussion could wait for the trip to the hotel.

"Hopefully, through the back door," said Connie.

"Won't there be guards?"

She unfolded a map. "Not at the door I'm thinking of."

* * *

They pulled into the hotel parking lot at about three o'clock in the morning. The Stanley Springs was an enormous sprawling building with white walls, looking less like a hotel than it did a palace. By daylight, with snow on the gardens around it, it would have been an amazing sight – by night it was lit by green and yellow floodlights, with the windows of a few isolated rooms still illuminated, and it was positively stunning – and rather intimidating. Palaces, after all, could be fortresses in the right circumstances.

Under more normal circumstances it was probably a lovely place to visit, but 'normal circumstances' had never been a big part of Steve Rogers' life, and clearly weren't going to start now.

They'd stopped at a gas station in the nearby town of Rose Hill and changed into their 'costumes'. Steve and Connie were in winter coats and boots over evening wear, a rented tuxedo for him and a black and red evening gown for her, as if they were hotel guests who'd been out late at a party. They headed indoors arm-in-arm. Tony followed, dressed in a bellhop's uniform they'd rented in New York and dragging their gear, hidden in suitcases. He didn't match what the hotel staff wore, but the type of people who stayed here might easily have personal servants. Certainly, none of the employees batted an eye as the three of them entered the foyer.

Inside, the hotel was even more impressive, with red rugs, black and white tile floors, and green walls. Most of the staff on duty this late at night were cleaners, who nodded to the group politely as they passed but made no move to stop or question them. The only guest they saw was an elderly man with a mustache and large aviator glasses, who was just leaving the elevator.

"Evening," he said to them politely.

"Evening," Steve replied. The man looked an awful lot like Dr. Lupanko who'd been killed in Dvenadstat, but he was gone before Steve could dwell on the resemblance.

Even the elevators were lavish, all mirrors and mouldings inside. Connie pushed the button for the top floor.

"I feel like we're about to rob Buckingham Palace," Steve murmured.

"Eh, we stayed here once," Tony said, unimpressed. "Mom spent the entire weekend shopping downstairs and never even left the building, while Dad was at some convention thing. I was so bored I actually read most of the Gideon Bible."

"Yeah?" asked Steve. If Tony were anything like his father, that was probably the most religious thing he'd ever done. "How'd you like it?"

Tony considered that. "I can see how they thought Exodus would make a good movie," he said, "but I don't get how anybody actually takes it as history. I mean, it's supposed to have _rained frogs_."

"It rained frogs in Hungary in 1977, twice," said Connie.

"What caused it?" Tony asked.

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you," she replied cheerfully.

They reached the top, and Connie looked right and left down the hallway, then turned left and followed it right to the end. There was a door there, marked _Staff Only_. Connie picked the lock with a piece of wire, and they slipped inside. This was the room where the housekeeping supplies and linens were stored. Connie pilfered a maid's uniform from one of the lockers, then kept watch at the door, pretending to file her nails, while Steve and Tony changed back into shirts and jeans. They set their shoes aside and put on big soft socks, so that their feet would make no noise on the floors, and slipped on stretchy gloves, so their fingers would leave no prints. Then they climbed into one of the laundry carts with their gear, and Connie put some rumpled sheets in on top of them before pushing the cart to the staff elevator.

"Here's one for the boy genius," said Connie, as they headed back down to the basement. "They _want_ you to think that the only ways in and out of a nuclear bunker are giant blast doors with guards in front of them, but that can't possibly be true. Why not?"

Connie couldn't see Tony's face, but Steve, crouched in the laundry cart with him, could – and he could tell that Tony had the answer before she'd even finished asking the question.

"Water!" Tony said immediately. "If you're gonna keep hundreds of people alive underground for months, they need water! On the space shuttle they _make_ water out of rocket fuel, but on Earth it's much easier to get it from a local source. If this place is called the _Stanley Springs_ , there must be a water source nearby, and they'll use that for the hotel bathrooms and laundry because this place can probably hold more guests than there are people in the nearest town."

"We'll make a secret agent out of you in no time!" Connie said, pleased. "You're absolutely right. And if the laundry's in the basement of the hotel to begin with, why not enclose it in an extra layer of concrete to be bomb-proof, and use it for the bunker as well? Congress isn't gonna want to sleep on dirty sheets, even after the end of the world."

The elevator doors opened. When Steve peeked over the edge of the laundry cart, he saw a long linoleum-floored hallway with peach walls, very different from the opulent décor upstairs but much more functional. He ducked out of sight again as Connie pushed the cart down the hall and through a set of free-swinging doors into the laundry room. This was busy, with maids pulling things out of machines to fold them, or stuffing them in and tearing open boxes of detergent. They were chattering amongst themselves in several languages, among which Steve identified English, Spanish, and Korean, and none even bothered to greet Connie.

"You got the distraction?" she asked in a whisper.

"Right here." Tony opened one of their bags, and pulled out a shoebox containing a small orange and brown snake, purchased at a less-than-reputable-looking pet shop on Amsterdam Avenue. He slipped it over the side and let it drop onto the floor.

Connie screamed like a banshee, making Steve wince. " _Snake_!" she shrieked. " _Snake_!"

The cry went up from the maids, and soon they were falling over each other to flee the laundry room. Steve could hear objects being thrown and shoes stamped at the unfortunate animal as the women ran, and Connie vaulted into the cart as if to take shelter in it.

"Okay, now! Fast!" she told the men.

They scrambled out of the laundry cart and looked around. The room was lined down one side by enormous washing machines, and own the other by equally huge dryers. Both were fed by pipes and ducts exposed in the ceiling, and down at the far end, where the pipes came in, there was a gap between machines. As if the room hadn't been quite big enough to fit one more in.

Tony looked at the place where the pipes entered the wall, then dropped to his knees and began feeling around on the tiles. Soon he found a square of linoleum that was loose – when he pulled that up, there was a metal pipe cap underneath. Most people would have assumed this led to a drain. Tony pushed it down, and turned it.

"Please be a secret door," he said under his breath. "Please be a secret door... please be a secret door..."

There was a rumbling sound, and the wall in front of them retracted behind the washing machines.

"Yay!" said Tony, jumping to his feet.

Beyond the door was another linoleum hallway, not unlike the one outside the laundry room except not lit. There were light fixtures in the ceiling, but they were not illuminated and there was no time to search for a switch. Tony turned on a flashlight, while Steve and Connie pushed the sliding door shut again.

The door was so thick that once it was closed, the laundry machines were no longer audible. Connie kicked off her shoes and pulled on her own gloves, and they began to make their way down the hall, walking as softly as possible.

The first rooms they found were dormitories, with numbers on the doors and labels such as _Senate_ or _Joint Chiefs_. Then there were shower rooms and locker rooms, and a door marked _Presidential Suite_. Tony paused once or twice to crack the doors open and peer curiously inside, but Connie would take his arm and urge him on.

"Have you been in here before?" Tony asked in a whisper.

"No," said Connie, "but we have places like this in Russia, so I've got an idea how they work. They'll have a vault for the storage of records and weapons. It'll be in there."

They descended a staircase, deeper into the bunker, and found a cafeteria. Doors off this led to kitchens, meeting rooms, and a small theater. All were cramped and sparsely decorated, with furniture that even Steve could recognize as being out of date. It made him wonder what the 'presidential suite' was like. Nobody else was planning to live in luxury after the end of the world – was the First Family?

A short hallway led off the cafeteria to the infirmary, and at the very end was a door that said _Records_. This was locked with a keypad.

"I can pick that!" Tony said, digging into his pocket for a small screwdriver. "I did one like it at NASA!"

Sure enough, after a few minutes of fiddling with it, he had the door open. Steve shone the light inside, and saw rows of filing cabinets, racks of guns in case it came to a last stand... and at the end, a big steel safe.

He suddenly felt nervous. What if Peggy _had_ lied to him again? What if they got the safe open and there were nothing in there?

Connie unzipped one of the suitcases and pulled out a small toolbox. "All right," she said, "this'll be the part where they hear us coming."

"Wait." Steve put out an arm to stop her. "If Peggy chose the combination for that safe, she'd pick something she knew she could remember." He stepped past Connie and looked at the dial – it had numbers from one to fifty. Steve spun it a few times and entered a combination: 21-1-45. January 21st, 1945. A day Peggy would forever associate with the tesseract, because it had been the day Steve had 'died'.

There was a clunk, and the door opened.

Inside was a metal case, similar to the one the two tesseract boxes had been in on Gunnysack Island. Steve pulled it out. It had a combination lock, too, but he knew Peggy wouldn't use the same numbers for both – this one he just pulled open with his bare hands.

An eerie blue glow spilled out, and there it was, silent and shining and pulsating with unknown energies. Steve's jaw hardened. This was the thing they'd fought a war over. This was the energy source HYDRA had nearly used to conquer the world, and now wanted back so they could try it again. He wished he could throw it into a volcano, or hurl it into space – but he couldn't, because whatever the hell the tesseract actually _was_ , it was eternal and indestructible. Now that they had it, humanity could never be free of it.

He shut the case again with a snap. "All right,' he said. "We've got it. Let's go."

Steve locked up the safe again and they returned to the upper level. Instead of going back through the laundry room, however, Connie directed them to put their shoes back on, and then headed into a storage area. Here they found a very long, very cold tunnel, with thousands upon thousands of bags and boxes and crates stacked against the walls to leave an aisle in the middle wide enough for a semi truck. This was the canned food and military rations that was supposed to keep the wealthy and powerful alive after the outside world had become a radioactive wasteland, and the tunnel it was kept in went on and on and _on_. Finally, after what seemed like miles of walking in the cold and dark, they came to another set of blast doors.

"This will lead outside to the road," said Connie. "There'll be guards there, so get ready to defend yourselves."

"Why didn't we come _in_ this way?" asked Tony.

"Because if we're going to surprise men with guns, we want to do so on the way _out_ of an enclosed area, not on the way _in_ so they can call reinforcements and be waiting for us when we come out again," Connie said. "Are you ready?"

"Ready," said Steve. He wished he had his shield, but he would make do.

Steve and Connie turned the enormous crank that unlocked and opened the blast doors, just far enough for a person to squeeze through. It moved with a loud creaking sound that nobody nearby could have failed to hear – they'd probably heard it upstairs in the hotel, too. Steve peered out.

There were no guards. The little hut outside was lit, but there was no sign of anybody inside it. The road that led up to the doors had not been ploughed and was buried in two inches of snow, but there was a car parked on it. It was a wood-paneled station wagon that would have blended in to any parking lot in the country, and as Steve tried to see if there were anybody at the wheel, the headlights suddenly came on and a figure stepped out. Blinded by the headlights, Steve couldn't tell who it was, but he could feel his insides sink.

It had to be Peggy – and that thought made Steve feel like a child caught stealing cookies from the jar. Now he was in for it. Now he'd have to either explain what he was doing and ask for her help, or else force her to get out of his way, and he wasn't sure which of those options he liked less.

"It's about damned time you showed up!" the figure called out.

Steve blinked. That wasn't Peggy's voice at all... but it _was_ familiar. "Fury?" he asked.

Fury stepped forward to be silhouetted by the headlights instead of hidden by them, and tapped at his watch. "I'm freezing my ass out here!" he informed Steve, then pulled a walkie-talkie out of his pocket. "Stand down, everybody," he ordered. "It's just Captain America and Friends."

Again, Steve thought they must have been discovered and were now under arrest, about to be dragged back to New York in handcuffs. But Fury's body language wasn't that of a man who was here to do such a thing. He motioned for Steve and the others to come with him, and climbed back into his car.

Steve held up a hand, telling Connie and Tony to stay back while he handled this. "What are you doing here?" he asked, approaching the car. "How did you know we'd _be_ here?"

"An alarm goes off in Madame Director's office when the safe is opened," Fury explained. "She's had us standing by in Rose Hill ever since she told you the tesseract is here. When the bell went, she had us move in to intercept. This is the only exit from the bunker that's not inside the hotel, so I figured you'd probably come out here."

"But you're not here to arrest us," Steve said. If that was the case, why had Fury told somebody to stand down? Who else would be breaking into Pellucidar, if not...

HYDRA. Peggy had figured it must be either Steve or HYDRA – and if it had been HYDRA, everybody involved would probably have been shot on sight.

"No," said Fury, "I'm here on behalf of Mrs. Margaret Dugan, nee Carter, Director of SHIELD and President Reagan's personal advisor about National Security Issues, to ask you what the _hell_ you think you're doing."

Steve glanced over his shoulder – Tony and Connie were cautiously approaching. He knew exactly how Connie would have answered Fury's question. "I'm saving the tesseract," he said.

Fury nodded. "That's what she figured. Climb in, folks. There's a jet waiting for us at the airport in Atlanta. We can take that wherever you need to go next."

It sounded too good to be true, which was why Steve hesitated. He remembered how Tony had reacted to Steve's initial description of what Viper had said to him – _it's a trap!_ "Why?" he asked. "Why is Peggy helping me do this? She doesn't even know what I'm going to do."

"Because she trusts you," said Fury. "She told me, _Steve has something in mind. Go make sure he doesn't get killed_. And for my own part," he added, "she's gonna want a _report_ filed when this is over, and I'm damned if I'm gonna sit there and try to _guess_ what was going on in your head."

Steve actually had to chuckle at that. "Our next stop is Norway," he said, and climbed in the passenger-side seat. Tony and Connie took this as a sign that it was safe, and hurried to catch up. Connie shoved their suitcases into the back, while Tony very carefully carried the broken metal suitcase in his lap.

"Norway." Fury nodded, starting the vehicle. "What's in Norway? Besides an anachronistic volcano?"

"Bob Barnum," Steve said. With everybody inside, Fury put the car in gear and headed down the twisting road, following his own tire tracks back towards the grand hotel. "Viper said I ought to know where to look if I wanted to find her again," Steve explained. "The last person I'm sure was looking for her was the Winter Soldier. Georgi Bocharov had him on board the _Sadko_ because he was trying to have Viper killed. I'll bet he was the guy who had Eva Natter shot in Central Park, too, because he didn't realize that she had Viper are two different women." Steve sure hadn't. "He wants revenge for his brother, who was poisoned after Bob Barnum's party because Barnum made him an offer and he refused – and Barnum was also the guy who introduced _me_ to Eva. If we want to find HYDRA," he said firmly, "we have to find Bob Barnum."


	26. Chapter 26: Captain America Come to Call

They drove through the rest of the night, arriving in Atlanta as the sun was coming up. Tony was asleep in the back seat, and Steve was yawning, but Fury headed for Hartsfield Airport and went in by a service road to the West of the public entrance. A guard at the gate let them through when Fury showed his SHIELD badge, and he drove to a small, unremarkable-looking hangar where a black Learjet was waiting for them.

"Why do you guys paint everything black?" asked Tony. "I mean, doesn't that just advertise that you're government spooks?"

"That's why we do it," Fury replied calmly. "People respect government spooks – and if they're looking at the government spooks, they're not looking at the normal guy in the blue Honda Civic who's getting the real work done."

Tony hesitated, then looked over his shoulder. When Steve followed his gaze, there was indeed a blue Civic parked outside the hangar. There was nobody in it.

Fury laughed as he climbed out of the car. "Who's driving?" he asked.

"Aren't you?" asked Steve, startled. It was true that he'd never _seen_ Fury pilot a plane, but somehow he'd always assumed he could _do_ it.

"Not my area," Fury said. "I'm tactics, not transport. Stark can't fly," he went on, "and we all remember what happened the last time Captain America tried to fly a plane."

For a moment Steve had no idea what Fury was talking about – the only time he'd flown anything since he'd been thawed out was the _Intrepid_ and while that hadn't been graceful, they'd all lived. Then he realized Fury meant the time _before_ that.

"Okay, first of all, I landed the space shuttle," said Steve. "And second, I crashed the _Valkyrie_ on purpose, so I wouldn't have to take it near a populated area."

"Sure you did," said Fury.

"I'll fly," said Connie. She tossed her jacket over her shoulder and stepped past them towards the plane.

Fury looked honestly surprised by that. "Really?" he asked. "Because I'm pretty sure Agent Constance Fletcher's SHIELD file didn't say anything about any pilot training."

"You really think I told SHIELD everything I can do?" Connie asked, without looking back.

"You're the one who said women are the best pilots," Steve reminded Fury.

Fury shook his head and began climbing the steps.

Steve and Tony followed him. "Is there a safe place on this plane to store the tesseract?" he asked.

"Of course there is." Fury chose a seat. "This plane was designed specifically to take the tesseract overseas if we needed to – that's why I brought you here instead of to Memphis. There's a compartment in the cockpit behind a control panel."

"It's this one!" came Connie's voice from the front of the plane. She was already in the cockpit with the flight manual open in her lap, going through a pre-flight checklist. "Right here, in front of the air conditioning. It's the only place they _could_ put it without moving stuff around so much that an ordinary pilot could no longer fly the plane."

"Right the first time!" said Fury, and grinned. "We have got to get us one of those black widows!"

* * *

When Ambassador Robert Barnum returned to American embassy in Oslo the next evening, Connie was waiting for him on the balcony above the front door. She dropped on top of him like a leopard, and pressed a pillow into his face so he couldn't shout. After a minute or so, the chloroform she'd put on the pillowcase began to take effect, and he went limp in her arms.

"Who wants to help me carry his heavy ass?" she called to her companions.

Steve, Fury, and Tony had been hiding in the hedges. Now they climbed out, untangling their clothes from the snowy branches, and Steve picked Barnum up like a sack of potatoes and slung him across his shoulders. At least part of the reason he did this was to show off – Tony had been using his prodigious ability to figure stuff out since this had all begun, Connie had gotten them into Pellucidar, and Nick had brought them the plane. It was time for _Steve_ to do something impressive.

The chloroform Barnum had inhaled was not enough to keep a man of his size unconscious for long. He was already coming to as they handcuffed his arms and legs to a chair in the middle of the same ballroom where he'd held his Hallowe'en party. Once they had him secured, they left him to wake up alone in the dark, and went to see what was in his refrigerator.

Twenty minutes or so later, still munching on leftover cheese and sandwiches, they returned to the ballroom. The lights were still out, and Barnum's attempts to escape had succeeded only in tipping over his chair, leaving him lying on his side on the floor.

"Hello!" he called out. "Is somebody there?"

Steve stuffed a last bite of capicollo and brie in his mouth, and went to set the chair upright. Barnum squinted as he approached, then his eyes widened and his face lit up in a smile as he recognized Steve.

"Captain America!" he exclaimed. "Thank goodness! I was just assaulted outside my own home..."

"I know," said Steve. He picked up the chair, Barnum and all, and set it on its legs again. This, too, was showing off, but the intended audience was different.

"Did you catch the perpetrator?" Barnum asked hopefully.

Connie emerged from the shadows and leaned on Steve's shoulder. " _Dobryy vecher_ , Ambassador," she said, hand on her hip.

The blood drained from Barnum's face as he re-evaluated the situation. "A Red Room girl? You're _Captain America_!"

The last person who'd been astonished by that had been Viper – apparently HYDRA had a lot invested in the idea that the east and west hated each other. "I guess in these modern times, Americans aren't known for their loyalty anymore," said Steve coolly. "After all, _you're_ with HYDRA."

"What?" Barnum laughed nervously. "Oh, no no no, you're mistaking me for somebody else."

"Let's go over your Hallowe'en guest list," said Steve. "There was Evelyn Devos of Roxxon, Arvid Pedersen from the Norwegian government, actor Dirk Hardpeck..." He didn't have any _proof_ that any of these people were HYDRA, but he'd had Tony look them up, and their CIA and SHIELD files made them all look less than trustworthy. Hardpeck had made the news in Hollywood a few years earlier for refusing to work with a Jewish director, and Roxxon had been up to some extremely shady business even _during_ the war. "Oh, and Aleksandr Bocharov, who died mysteriously after refusing some kind of offer you made him."

Barnum swallowed. "You were scoping me out," he said.

"Why not?" asked Steve. "You were scoping _us_ out. Where's Eva Natter?"

"Isn't she dead?" asked Barnum. "Didn't she get shot by some psycho in New York?"

Steve wondered for a moment if Barnum had known that Viper and Eva weren't the same person, but then realized of _course_ he did – he probably used her dual identity to excuse things like grabbing her backside, by claiming he hadn't known it was her. "Where's Viper?" he tried.

"I don't know," said Barnum.

"Then you'd better point us to somebody who _does_ know," said Steve.

"I swear," Barnum insisted, "I have no idea."

Steve took a step closer, deliberately looming over the seated man. "Let's see how true that is," he said.

Barnum blinked, then chuckled. "What are you going to do, torture me?" he asked. "That wouldn't be very _Captain America_ of you."

"Of course it wouldn't," Steve said, and moved to one side, nodding at Connie. "That's why I brought the Red Room girl."

Connie dug into her purse and pulled out a device that looked like a small metal pear, made of four sections. The metal was rough and tarnished, clearly very old, and Steve had deliberately decided not to wonder too much about where she'd gotten it. "Get his nose for me, would you, _dorogoy_?" Connie asked.

Steve pinched Barnum's nose, and when the man was forced to part his lips in order to draw breath, Steve forced his thumb in behind his teeth and pried his jaw open so that Connie could insert the device. Barnum's eyes were wide with terror, the sclera visible all around the irises.

"This is called a choke pear," said Connie, as if she were giving a demonstration to a classroom full of students. "When I turn this..." she twisted the 'stem' of the pear, "the sections open up." She turned it a few more times, until the sections could be seen pressing against the insides of Barnum's cheeks. "If I keep it up long enough, it'll break your teeth and dislocate your jaw... not necessarily in that order. Apparently it was invented by the inquisition as a way to torture heretics, although some scholars believe it was a sort of a showpiece, never actually used because even the inquisition couldn't be so cruel. Should we find out?" she asked.

Barnum could not talk with the object in his mouth – he could not swallow, either, and drool was beginning to trickle off his lower lip – but he shook his head hard and made upset noises.

"You gonna tell us where Viper is, then?" asked Steve.

Their prisoner nodded. In the half-light of the ballroom, beads of sweat could be seen glistening on his forehead.

"Let him talk," said Steve.

"Ruin my fun, why don't you?" Connie pouted, and closed the device so she could pull it back out of Barnum's mouth – although she didn't close it _quite_ all the way, making its removal a difficult process that scraped Barnum's teeth. The man was panting as she pulled it free.

"Yugoslavia!" he gasped out, almost as soon as his jaw was free to move. "After you chased her out of the arctic she went to hide in Yugoslavia! There's a hilltop fortress that I _swear_ I can't remember the name of right now! Give me a moment, it'll come to me! Please don't put that thing back in my mouth!"

Connie twirled the pear in her fingers. "How about I stick it up your ass instead?"

"S... it starts with S... _Sokovia_!" he shrieked finally. "The city is called Sokovia! It's right by the Vardar River, about twenty miles from the Latverian border! There's a castle on the hill above the city centre, and we've had an outpost there since the war ended! That's where she went!"

"All right," said Steve, and took a step back. His gut told him Barnum was telling the truth – the terror in his voice was far too real for a lie. "Some friends of ours have been tape-recording this conversation, by the way. I bet Viper will be impressed by how fast you caved."

"Didn't even get it open halfway," Connie agreed, disappointed. "My my... remember when HYDRA operatives used to take strychnine rather than reveal secrets to the allies?" she asked Steve.

"Now _those_ were agents of a wanna-be evil empire!" Steve said. "Should we untie him before we go?"

"Nah," Connie shook her head. "Let's leave him there to shit himself. Untying him gives him a head start when Zola decides he's outlived his usefulness."

From above there was the sound of Fury clearing his throat – he'd been waiting his own turn on the Mezzanine. Now he started down the stairs. "Actually, I'll take it from here," he said. "Pleasure to see you again, Ambassador Barnum – in case you don't remember me, I'm Agent Nick Fury with SHIELD. Since this embassy is considered American soil, I have the power to place you under arrest for membership in a group known to be conspiring against the American government."

Steve would not have thought it was possible for Barnum to go any whiter, but he did. "I... I have friends here in Scandinavia..." he began.

"Yeah, about that," said Fury. "Your aide, Miss Nygård, not only looks sexy in a Snow White costume, she's had a lot to say about what you and your friends get up to at the Norwegian Stock Exchange." He gave Barnum a nasty grin, and then looked at Steve. "You go on ahead to Sokovia, Cap. I'll put this guy on a plane and then meet you there."

"Thanks, Nick," Steve replied. "Pleasure working with you."

Tony had been watching the whole thing from behind a pillar, finishing up a piece of leftover fruitcake. He joined them as they left the room. "Man," he said, trotting down the front stairs with Connie and Steve as police cars started to pull up. "That was _brutal_."

"Brutal is what I'm best at," Connie said, with every sign of being proud of it. Steve reflected that he didn't even know if _that_ were true. Did she, in fact, enjoy what she did? Or did she hate herself for it, as Steve sometimes had during the war when he'd been obliged to do particularly awful things? He could ask her, but he'd have no way to know whether the answer she gave him were honest or not.

* * *

Once they were back on the plane, bound for the Yugoslavian city of Sokovia, there was more work to do. The tesseract was safely stowed behind the air conditioning controls. Now they had to be sure they had everything else.

"How's the fake holding up?" Steve asked.

Tony pulled a metal case down from the overhead compartment. While Steve had been convincing Peggy to tell him where the tesseract was, Tony had been down in his own workroom, collecting his reconstruction of his father's wartime notes. He'd built a copy of HYDRA's war-era extraction equipment, and had also taken the two tesseract boxes they'd found on Gunnysack Island. Filling one of those with extracted energy was, they hoped, enough to fool Viper for a while. According to Tony's calculations, the tesseract energy inside should be enough to run the time machine once. By the time HYDRA realized it was empty, Steve and his friends would be on their way back to New York to get Bucky.

When Tony unlocked the case and opened it, the fake tesseract was still nestled in the foam, glowing softly. It looked real enough to Steve.

"Are you _sure_ I can't..." Tony began.

"No," said Steve. "You've done enough. You stay here, and Connie and I will deliver this to Viper, get the time machine, and get out."

"I'm not a kid," Tony insisted. "I can defend myself. I wanted to show you another thing I built..." He started to take his jacket off.

"Whatever it is, you can use it to defend the tesseract if they come looking for it here," Steve told him firmly. He could not keep making excuses for putting Tony in harm's way.

Connie put the plane on autopilot and came back to join them. "How are you going to get your friend back without destroying half of New York?" she asked. "SHIELD doesn't like to make a mess, and I have a hard time imagining a bigger mess than dinosaurs strolling up Fifth Avenue."

"We talked about that already," Tony told her. "We'll go to the roof of the Met, where Captain Rogers' friend was when he shot Eva Natter, and there we'll make a very small distortion. The problems only happen when the field _collapses_ , so the Captain can grab Barnes, and then I'll put the time machine in the second tesseract box. The boxes are built to contain temporal-spatial anomalies, so once it's in there it can collapse without hurting anybody. We can get Dad on the terrace outside our apartment, and Mrs. Pym will know where to get her husband."

"And you didn't tell Fury about that part because you know he won't approve of it," said Connie.

"Right," said Steve. They would not have been on this plane right now if Fury had known what Steve really had in mind... they would probably be in a SHIELD lockup like the one Peggy had kept Connie and Natalia in. "Why?" he asked. "Are _you_ about to lecture me about trust?" Connie was hardly in a position to do that.

"No," she replied. "You're giving back what you got. They used you, so you're using them. I just want to make sure you know you won't be able to do it a second time."

Steve honestly hadn't even thought of that. She was probably right, of course – he was burning a bridge here. Fury and Peggy would never trust him again without knowing exactly what he was up to, and for a moment he found that hard to imagine. Since the day he'd met her, Steve had never lived in a world where Peggy did not trust him implicitly. She'd been counting on him breaking the rules to rescue the _Odyssey_ astronauts, and Fury had trusted him enough to go with him.

A moment later, however, he realized that he'd actually been living in that world all along. If Peggy had really trusted him as much as he'd thought she had, she would have told him her suspicions about the Winter Soldier. Instead, she'd used him as a tool to solve her own problems and in the process let him kill his oldest friend. For that, she deserved to find out that he didn't have _her_ best interests at heart, either – and she deserved to find out the hard way.

"Can't turn back now," he said.

"You can always turn back," Connie said. "You just don't want to."

"No," Steve agreed. "I don't."

* * *

The airport in Oslo had been large enough that their plane was relatively anonymous, even as the only black jet among dozens of sleek white ones. That was not possible in Sokovia. When they landed there they were one of only four aircraft, none of them much bigger than the SHIELD jet. People were staring as they climbed down the steps to the tarmac, but nobody challenged them. Steve suspected HYDRA had given orders to let them right in.

It had been cold in New York and bitter in Oslo. In Sokovia it was chilly and damp, with a few fat snowflakes drifting down only to melt as soon as they hit the ground. Steve rented a car, and he and Connie drove through a city that was all shiny new buildings with big Cyrillic signs on them, but the inhabitants didn't seem to match. The people they passed were dressed in layers of old clothes, heads down and hands in their pockets, intent on their destinations and not stopping to talk to each other. Their faces were lean and pale, and their breath rose in steaming clouds. It looked, Steve thought, as if the city had plenty of money but none of it had been spent where it was needed. There were shops selling diamonds and fur coats, but when they passed a grocery store, the pallets of fruit and vegetables out front were only half-full.

Above the city was the castle Barnum had described: a well-preserved, multi-tiered construction built both onto and into a rocky hill, in front of a dramatic mountain backdrop. It looked like a place from a postcard.

It was also easily defensible. Built up high, it could look down on the valley all around it and see attackers coming from any direction. There was probably far more of it _inside_ the hill than out, which would allow lots of space for food storage and probably its own water supply. The people who'd built it centuries ago had been thinking along the same lines as the people who'd designed the bunker under the Stanley Springs Hotel. They just wanted to outlast a slightly different apocalypse.

Connie was studying it, too. "Places like this always have secret passages in and out," she said. "I suspect one of the churches in town will..." but Steve held up a hand to stop her.

A long, broad flight of steps led down from the castle to the town square, with a row of concrete posts at the bottom to keep people from trying to drive up. Steve parked next to those and grabbed the case with the fake tesseract.

"We're going in the front door," he said.

"Okay," she said.

There were over a hundred stairs in the flight up to the castle, and Steve was sure they were being watched every step of the way. Viper would have no guarantee he'd actually brought the tesseract with him until she saw him face-to-face, and even then she was probably bright enough to suspect a trick like the one he was trying to pull. He continued calmly. Getting in depended on looking like everything was above board. Getting out might be a different matter.

Peggy had used to complain that Steve never _planned_ anything. That wasn't quite true – he did plan, but his planning rarely went further than getting into a place and beating people up until he found what he wanted, then beating up more people until he got out. Peggy preferred to have things like intel and options, but Steve had always done best by setting a goal and then just going for it with everything he had. It had worked the last time he'd saved Bucky's life, at the HYDRA base in Austria.

He would just have to hope it was enough this time, too.

When they reached the top, they found the castle's huge wooden doors ajar. Steve gently pushed on one – it opened further, with a shriek of rusty hinges, and he peeked inside. He wasn't sure what he expected to see. HYDRA bases during the war had always been hives of activity, and the base at Gunnysack had been full of people and equipment spilling out of rooms and into the hallways. This castle, however, turned out to be almost completely empty.

There was a great hall, shored up with modern scaffolding where the ancient structure was threatening to fall down. Light was trickling in through high-up, grubby windows. The clay floor tiles were cracked and chipped, but they'd been swept clean recently – dust and old leaves were piled in the corners instead of strewn across the whole room. And right in the middle of the space was a machine topped off with a time manipulation device like the one from the torpedo on the _Ilya Murometz_ , next to a small table with a little television and a VCR on it. There was a tape sticking out of the VCR, waiting to be played.

Steve looked at Connie. She shrugged, which he took to mean that she couldn't see any traps in the room. With that for reassurance, Steve stepped forward and pushed the tape into the machine.

It went _clunk_ , then _whirr_ , then the small TV screen flickered to life on a black and white image of Viper's smiling face. A timestamp in the corner showed four PM on the previous day.

"Hello, Captain Rogers," said Viper. "I knew you could find me if you wanted to. As you can see, we've been waiting for you."

Steve glanced nervously around the room, expecting soldiers to come rushing out at him – but other than the tinny audio from the television set, there was not a sound. The entire building still seemed to be empty.

"I expect you don't actually have the tesseract with you," Viper went on. "You figured you were going to make us bargain for it. We're fully prepared to do so, but first I fear I have to make a confession. I lied to you again. We still do have one canister of energy left, at least that Zola's told us about. That means we do, in fact, have one more functional time machine."

The camera filming her zoomed out a little bit, to show the device next to her. There was, indeed, a canister of energy hooked up to it, with a timer attached. The canister glowed white on the tape, as its bright light oversaturated the recording equipment.

"You will already have noticed that next to this message is a similar machine with no energy source," Viper said. "If both are activated at once, the distortion fields they produce will cancel each other out and nothing will happen. If the one next to me goes off and the other one _doesn't_ , then I'm afraid the castle will be inundated by what was here a hundred and fifty million years ago. If you're not up on your paleontology, this area was covered by an ocean at the time. That's untold gallons of salt water, enough to sweep the whole city off the map."

Steve realized he could feel his heart thumping in his ears. Of course, he thought... of course they'd had some way to _force_ him to hand over the tesseract once he got here. He looked down at the case in his hands, then at the waiting machine. Would the fake tesseract be enough? Even if it were... what happened if one machine shut down before the other? There was no way to tell except to hook it up and see what happened.

"Now, Captain America may be the type to let a black widow torture Bob Barnum into submission," said Viper on the tape, "but I don't think he's the kind to let a million civilians drown because he didn't want to give up the tesseract. Even so, Zola thought you might need some extra encouragement, so we brought in some friends of yours."

The camera zoomed out again. Viper and her time machine were in the middle of a tiny stone room, lit by only a single light bulb. Steve could make out where there'd once been an arch in one wall, but it had since been filled with bricks. There was no furniture, but when the person holding the camera moved to one side, there _was_ a lump of shivering blankets. Steve stared at this for a moment, and then realized it was a group of human figures, chained to the wall. A woman, and two children.

To his horror, he realized that the woman was Darlene Wilson. She was clutching baby Sam against her, trying to keep him warm, while Natalia snuggled against them. Sometime after Steve and Connie had left for Tennessee, HYDRA must have picked them up and brought them here.

"When this machine is activated, the room will fill with water immediately," Viper said. "I doubt you've got the tesseract on you right now, so I'm giving you a little time to go and get it. You have one hour."

The tape ended, and the screen went blue. At the same time, there was a beep. The clock on the VCR had so far been flashing _12:00_ , but now it changed to _59:59_ , and began counting down.

Steve's brain raced. "Okay," he said, turning to Connie. "They've got to be somewhere in the city. If we can find the machine, we'll find Darlene and the kids. You mentioned secret passages..."

Connie stared at him for a moment as if she didn't understand what he was saying. Then she punched him in the face.

Steve staggered backwards – he'd forgotten that Connie was almost as strong as he. Before he could right himself, she jumped on top of him, wrapped her legs around his neck, and forced him to the ground. The metal case with the fake tesseract in it went sliding away across the floor, throwing sparks. Connie yanked Steve's radio, which he'd brought along to keep in touch with Tony and Fury, out of his pocket, then ran to grab the case.

"Connie!" Steve got up again, surprised and dazed but recovering quickly. "What are you doing?"

She scooped up the case and, without hesitation, swung it into the side of his head. He ducked, but she grabbed his hair and slammed his face into the wooden door. Steve saw spots, and tasted blood. By the time he got on his feet again, Connie was gone.

He stumbled to the door to go after her. What the hell was she _doing_ , he wondered... but then he realized the answer was obvious. The one thing Connie would not risk was Natalia. Ever since she'd reappeared in Tony's room at Thanksgiving, her first priority had always been to keep this little girl safe. Now the only sure way to save her was to give HYDRA the tesseract – the _real_ tesseract, which was back on the plane with Tony. Steve had to warn him, but Connie had taken his radio.

Steve took the steps down three at a time, but Connie was at the bottom well ahead of him. By the time he caught up, she'd started the car, and pulled away just as his fingers brushed the door handle. Steve nearly fell on his face as he tried to grab the vehicle, and had to catch himself on one of the concrete pylons.

"Connie, _stop_!" he shouted.

She did not.

What now? Steve couldn't possibly let Connie give the tesseract to HYDRA, for any reason... but if he went after her, then he wasn't looking for the hostages. If he could find them before the hour was up, he could free them and dismantle the other time machine – but in the mean time, Connie would get back to the plane and find the tesseract, and Steve had no faith in Tony's ability to stop her. Tony was bright and capable, but he was only human, whereas Connie, like Steve himself, had been modified somehow... but if he went after her, then he might not make it back before the time was up...

"Captain!" a voice said, and somebody grabbed his shoulder.

Steve spun around, ready to fight – but it wasn't an enemy. It was Janet Pym, in her Wasp suit.

"Where did you come from?" he asked.

"I've been with you since you picked up Fury, you just couldn't see me," she said. "Go get the hostages. I'll follow Fyodorova."

"Are you sure you can handle her?" asked Steve.

"Yes! Go!" said Janet, and vanished as she shrank out of sight again.


	27. Chapter 27: Countdown

_Go get the hostages_. It was easy to _say_ , but before he could _do_ it, Steve would have to _find_ them.

He ran back up the steps and into the room with the television set, and tried to re-wind the tape, hoping it would contain a clue to where Darlene and the kids were being kept. It would not rewind. He would have to rely on his memory.

Steve shut his eyes and tried to summon it up. His memory _could_ be photographic, but only if he were paying attention at the time. They had been in a stone room with no windows in view. Light had been coming from _behind_ the cameraman, throwing a stark, black-edged shadow of the time machine on the wall. There'd once been an arched doorway, but it had been filled with bricks and mortar. It looked like a dungeon... or a crypt.

Connie had mentioned the possibility of a secret passage leading to one of the churches. That would be perfect – a place HYDRA could get into and out of without being seen, and keep prisoners indefinitely without fear of discovery. The other way in must be through a church, then... but how many churches were there in Sokovia? When he went back to the door and looked at the city spread out below him, he saw at least a dozen spires, ranging from a cathedral at least as old as the castle itself to modern steeples painted white.

Tony could have figured it out, Steve thought. Tony would have just done some math in his head and named the best place for the cancellation of the distortion field or whatever. Tony wasn't here, though – he was back on the plane, where Connie was heading, and would soon have his hands full if Janet couldn't stop her. That meant it was up to Steve.

It would have to be one of the older churches, he decided. Something built around the same time. And fairly nearby, because tunneling was hard work. The cathedral across the square was probably the best bet from a logistical standpoint.

He ran down the stairs and crossed the square in a few long strides, bursting in through the doors. The inside of the cathedral was in surprisingly good repair, with red, black, and white floor tiles and the walls covered with glossy wood paneling and partially-gilded pictures of saints. It was also still in use – there were people inside it talking quietly in groups or praying, and a number of heads turned to look at Steve as he barged in. He tried to remember what language people spoke in this part of the world, realized he probably wouldn't have understood any of it if he'd known, and was forced to fall back on the old standby of rude American tourists that he and his multi-lingual team had tried so hard to avoid during the war.

"Does anybody here speak English?" he called out. " _Ou le Français?_ _Quelqu'un parle-t-il Français_?" Between Gabe and Frenchy, Steve spoke enough of that language to get by.

" _Je parle Français_!" a voice replied, and a priest came striding out of a side chapel. Standing up straight, this man would have been as tall as Steve, but he was at least eighty years old, with bent shoulders and unkempt snow-white hair. " _What is the matter, my son_?" he asked, putting a thick-knuckled hand on Steve's shoulder. " _Vous n'êtes pas Capitaine Amérique?_ "

Steve grabbed the man's arm. " _Yes! Yes, I'm Captain America_ ," he said. " _Is there a crypt or secret hallway in this church? A stone room with no windows and a bricked-up archway? My enemies are holding hostages there!_ "

" _Your enemies_?" the priest asked, his bushy eyebrows rising. " _Do you mean the lady in green_?"

"Yes!" Steve said. " _Oui! Has she been here_?"

" _Venez avec moi!_ " the priest ordered.

He took Steve back into the chapel and down a flight of stairs to the underground part of the building. This, too, was in good repair, although clearly much older than the upstairs parts – the walls were made of rougher stone, decorated with glittering Byzantine mosaics that were beginning to crumble. The floor had been covered by huge sheets of plastic to preserve a similar mosaic there, as well as the big carved marble slabs that marked the burials of saints and of the two kings and one queen who had ruled the city in between it gaining freedom from the Serbian empire and being conquered by the Ottomans. The priest led him past all this and down a dim hallway to an even older room, barely more than a cave holding a baptismal font that looked something like a rough-hewn marble hourglass. In the opposite wall was a stone arch filled in with bricks. This alteration had once been covered with plaster and a rather amateurish fresco, but that was falling away.

" _What's beyond that_?" Steve asked, pointing.

" _Queen Ljuba is supposed to have walled up her lovers in there_ ," the priest replied.

Steve hefted the font. " _May I_?"

" _If it will save a life, then in the name of God_ ," said the priest.

Steve rammed the stone basin into the bricks. They took two blows, then crumbled, and he was able to toss the font aside and rip down the rest of it with his bare hands. The room they were in had no lighting besides what came in the door from the hallway beyond, and that was dim indeed by the time it reached the space Steve had opened. He could see nothing but blackness.

"Darlene!" he shouted. "Natalia!" His voice didn't echo. The room he'd found must be small.

Then the priest came in with a flashlight, and Steve stumbled back in surprise. The space behind the arch turned out to be only a couple of feet deep, and inside were four skeletons, still chained to the wall. Some of them still had jewelry on. Steve had, of course, seen worse, but it was still a horrible thing to find suddenly in his face. The wall behind was blank. The hostages were not here, and Steve felt ashamed both of destroying part of a church and of thinking HYDRA would have made it that easy.

The priest crossed himself and murmured a prayer.

"Sorry about the mess," Steve said, steadying himself with a hand on the wall. " _Je m'excuse_ ," he repeated, " _but I need to find the hostages. Where else might a secret passage from the castle lead_?"

The priest took him back to the larger part of the basement, and showed him the floor mosaic – it was a crude map of the city as it had been at the time of building, showing the river, the castle, the cathedral, and four smaller churches. " _It would have to be one of those_ ," he said, and pointed to one around the far side of the hill where the castle was. " _This one is destroyed. It was bombed in the war, and never re-built_."

A ruined church was probably a better bet than a much-frequented cathedral, Steve realized. " _Merci beaucoup, mon Père_ ," he said and glanced at the wall he'd demolished. " _I'll make sure somebody fixes that_." Maybe SHIELD could pay for it.

" _And I shall see to the burial of these poor souls_ ," the priest said.

The quickest way to the bombed church was over the hill rather than around it. Steve ran up the steps, climbed over a wall at the top, vaulted over the top of a roof and slid down the steep slope on the far side, to land in a narrow alleyway behind a row of houses that appeared to be built into the mossy remains of a Roman aqueduct. The church was in the next street. He went between the houses and ran across, nearly being hit by a car, and there it was.

This small church was surrounded by a chain-link fence with orange plastic woven through it, to keep people out. Steve scaled that, broke the barbed wire at the top so he wouldn't have to bother with it, and landed on his feet in a pile of rubble.

Only a corner of the church was still standing, with a couple of buttresses and half a dome. The rest was in blackened heaps on the ground. Signs were posted, and while Steve couldn't read the text on them, the skull and crossbones and schematic outline of a bomb were clear enough – people were afraid there might be unexploded ordinance still lying around here. Despite that, kids had been in to paint slogans and obscene images on the walls and fences.

"Darlene?" Steve began climbing across the rubble, hoping to find an entrance to something. "Natalia! Darlene! Can anybody hear me?"

He got no reply, and as he moved around the lot, Steve quickly realized that these ruins were far too dangerous even for HYDRA. Any underground room here was inaccessible and would have been prone to collapse – and while Viper surely wouldn't care what happened to her hostages, she wouldn't want one of her time machines destroyed by falling rocks.

There was another church a few blocks further north. Steve could see its square bell tower. He climbed back over the fence and took off.

When he arrived, he found that this building had been recently refurbished. Despite its gothic exterior, the inside was new and whitewashed, with very little of the decoration that had been in the Cathedral – this must be a protestant congregation, not Orthodox. It was also likely that any secret passageways or rooms had been either closed off or opened up properly, and wouldn't be any good to somebody wanting to hide things.

Just to make sure, he found a woman who spoke passable English and asked her whether there were any secret rooms or if Viper had been there. She said no, but by this time Steve was starting to get paranoid again – what if this woman had been paid to lie to him? What if the _priest_ had? What if the priest were with HYDRA, himself, and had deliberately taken Steve to the wrong place? What if he'd been only a few yards from Darlene and the kids and hadn't known it?

Steve was starting to panic, and that wasn't something he did very often. If he'd had time to _think_ about this, the thing to do would probably have been to put the fake tesseract into the machine and hope for the best. Connie hadn't given him the opportunity, though – she'd taken the fake away so she could use its case to carry the real one. Why had he ever thought this was a good idea? If he'd just told Peggy the _truth_ , instead of manipulating her to tell him where the damned thing was, none of this would have been happening. He'd been so focused on the idea of bringing back the dead he'd never thought about the consequences for the living!

How much time did he have left? Steve looked at his watch, and then realized with a shiver that he hadn't bothered to check it at the moment the counter on the VCR had started ticking down its hour. He had no idea how long he'd spent wandering around the city, and the only way to find out now was to go back and check. For all he knew, by the time he got there it might be too late. The city might be washed away by a prehistoric ocean at any moment.

Steve went anyway, taking the steps up the hill three and four at a time and all but ripping the huge old wooden doors off their hinges. The machine was still there, in the center of the dusty great hall. Connie had not yet returned with the tesseract, and nobody else had been in here – Steve could still see the smears and ruts in the dirt on the floor from where he and Connie had fought.

The clock was still counting down. It was at _10:06_.

Ten minutes. Steve breathed out, but his relief was short-lived. What the hell could he possibly do about this in ten minutes? How could he find the hostages and the machine in ten minutes? Was that enough time to get to one of the two remaining churches? Would Connie even make it back here in that time to save them the easy way? Maybe not, with Janet behind her – Steve was sure Connie could take a full-sized opponent, but a miniature one would be full of surprises. If there was no longer time to find them, and Connie wasn't coming back, then Steve had to do something else... but what?

His eyes went to the machine on the table. Could _that_ tell him anything? Tony had managed to learn a lot from the one they'd found on Gunnysack Island – if he were standing here now, he would just plug in his numbers and calculate the shapes of the fields and...

Shapes of fields. Something went tight inside Steve. From above, the part of Tønsberg consumed by the eruption had been a circle. He'd assumed at the time that was just the shape of the volcanic crater. There hadn't been a real opportunity to see the _shape_ of the problems at the _Achilles_ , but he could remember on board the _Ilya Murometz_ how the very center, where the time machine itself was, there was a spherical area that had no foreign objects in it. That was how he'd been able to recover the part from there. Whatever this terrible little machine did, it did it in circles. Which meant that if the machine _here_ were going to cancel out the field produced by a second machine, that second machine also had to be _here_.

Steve looked at the floor. That was it. That _had_ to be it. The other time machine, and therefore the cell where Darlene and the children were being kept, must be right here... it couldn't be above his head, because there was nothing up there but roof and sky. It had to be under his feet.

Besides the one Steve had come in by, there were two doorways out of the great hall. One led to the biggest tower, where stairs spiraled up to the top but did not go down. That was out. The second led into what had once been the castle kitchen. One door there led out into the courtyard. Another to a passageway inside the surrounding wall. Halfway down that was another doorway into a narrower tower, and here the stairs went both up _and_ down.

The flight that led down was a tight fit for Steve – it had been built long ago for people much smaller than he, and he had to go sideways and stoop in order to fit. The steps themselves were wet and slippery, although the darkness kept him from seeing with _what_ , which was probably just as well. More than once his feet almost slid out from under him, but his wide shoulders got struck between the walls and kept him from falling.

He reached the bottom, where there was another narrow hallway. It ought to have been completely dark in there, but there was a faint blue glow coming from a grate in the floor, far at the other end. Steve ran to look down through it.

"Darlene!" he shouted.

"Steve? Is that you?" The voice was unbelieving, close to tears. When Steve knelt down to look, he found himself staring right into the blue glow of tesseract energy – and off to one side were Darlene Wilson and the two children. Darlene had come as close to getting up as she could with one arm shackled to the wall, and was leaning forward to look through the grate.

Steve stuck a hand through. "Yes, it's me!" he said. "Are Sam and Natalia okay?"

"They're fine, just cold and scared," Darlene said. "Miss Natter said this machine is going to drown us all!"

Steve checked his watch, and then cursed himself again – he _still_ hadn't bothered to check the time after realizing there were only ten minutes left. It had taken him at least a few of those to find and struggle down the stairs. There was only one choice now. He had to deactivate that machine.

"Cover the kids," Steve said. "I might dislodge something."

Darlene sat down again and wrapped the blankets around herself and the children, while Steve grabbed the bars of the metal grate and pulled with all his strength, bracing his feet against the floor. There was a groan of metal that rose in pitch until it became a shriek, and the grate broke away in Steve's hands. He threw it aside and swung his legs into the little hole to climb through.

When he did, however, he found that he'd overestimated the size of the hole – or perhaps underestimated the side of his body. Steve's hips fit, barely, but his shoulders did not. He twisted and turned, trying to find the right angle, then hissed in pain as a broken piece of metal bar dug painfully into his ribs. This wasn't going to work. He wiggled his way out again and took another look.

The machine was sitting on a table in the middle of the room. It looked very much like the version built to fit into the torpedoes on the _Perlboot_ , with the device on top and the tesseract energy in its canister underneath. Maybe if Steve stuck a leg in and kicked it, he could separate the two... but that might also risk breaking the canister, and he knew from experience that such a device contained enough energy to destroy the entire castle and half the city with it.

Natalia got to her feet and held up her free hand. " _Shpil'ka_ ," she said.

 _Shpil'ka_ was Russian for _hairpin_... Steve blinked. Could this three-year-old possibly know how to pick a lock? He didn't have a hairpin, but he did have a paper clip in his shirt pocket. He pulled it out, unbent it, and tossed it down to her.

"Unlock Darlene first!" he ordered. "Darlene, as soon as you're out, go pull the blue canister out of the machine. Use as much force as you can, and be careful not to drop it."

Natalia snatched up the clip and picked the lock on Darlene's chains, while Darlene herself used her free arm to wrap Sam up so he wouldn't have to sit on the cold floor. As soon as she was free she got to her feet, and went and took hold of the canister with gritted teeth, as if afraid it would be hot. It was not, and she took a deep breath, then yanked it out.

 _Now_ Steve could breathe again.

"What do I do with it now?" Darlene asked. Natalia was already working on picking her own lock.

"Just leave it," Steve said, and reached down through the hole. "Grab my hand."

Darlene put the canister down as if it were a bomb, then scooped Sam up and passed him up to Steve. By then Natalia was out of her bonds, so Darlene helped her up next, and only then, with the children safe, did she reach up to let Steve pull her out.

"All right," he said. "Let's go."

"Which way?" asked Darlene, looking around in the darkness. After the bright light of the tesseract energy in the little room, she must not be able to see a thing up here.

Steve's eyes, too, were still adjusting. He put out a hand and found the wall. "This way," he said. "Away from the light." He put an arm around Darlene's shoulders and took Natalia's hand, and led them back to the staircase, where he let them go first. Following was a struggle. The staircase seemed even tighter on the way up than it had on the way down, and Steve's side was aching where the bit of broken metal had poked it. Maybe he'd actually cut himself. He wondered if he could get tetanus... with his luck, the doctors were going to want to give him a shot either way, just in case.

The adrenaline was draining out of his body now, and he felt like he was going to want a good nap when they got back to the plane. Hopefully Janet and Tony had Connie contained somehow. They could fly home, turn the Russian over to Peggy, and then everybody could take a break.

Then they reached the great hall, and Steve stopped dead.

Connie was there. She was bruised and bloodied, breathing hard and with her face filthy, but she was wearing the alloy gloves they used to handle the tesseract and was kneeling next to the machine, carefully sliding the object into place. For a moment Steve thought he had to be hallucinating. She couldn't have made it back just in time. Not with Tony and Janet to stop her. _Could_ she?

"Connie!" he shouted.

She looked up. Her eyes went to him, and then to the child holding his hand. " _Solnyshka_!" she exclaimed, and got to her feet, her first instinct to go and reclaim her child. Natalia, too, let go of Steve's hand and hurried to meet Connie – but Steve's gaze was locked on the countdown still showing on the VCR.

 _00:08_.

"Solnyshka!" Connie scooped Natalia up and kissed each of her cheeks. "He found you! He found you!"

Steve took Darlene by the shoulders and pushed her towards the door. "Get out of here!" he ordered her. "Get out now, run like hell and don't look back!" Then he went to grab Connie. "Break it up! We have to get out!"

Connie blinked, then looked at the machine again, and the colour drained from her face. Her grip tightened on Natalia until the little girl squeaked.

"Go!" Steve insisted, and ran for the machine. He had to pull the tesseract out before the countdown could end. If he touched it with his bare hands it would probably tear him apart, scattering his molecules across the cosmos as it had Schmidt's... would Steve, too, end up a force trapped in the Earth's ionosphere? Would he and Schmidt do battle there for the rest of all eternity, visible to the people below only as spectacular aurorae? That was a risk he was just going to have to take.

 _00:03_

The case was still lying where Connie had dropped it. Steve snatched it up. If he could get the tesseract into it before he disintegrated, nobody else would have to take that risk.

 _00:01_

A shock wave spread out, and the castle rumbled... then the first tree appeared. It was behind Steve, an immensely tall thing with weird, smooth, gray bark. He scrambled away from it, then rolled aside as a second one materialized on his left. When he got up, he found Connie, Darlene, and the children had been on their way out the door, but a third tree was now blocking it, with the wood of the half-opened door embedded in the trunk.

Steve had nearly torn that door down ten minutes ago. He would have to do it for real now – he threw himself against it, and the hinges broke. That would do. Steve pulled the door apart and grabbed Darlene's arm.

"Come on!" he ordered.

The group hurried out, then stopped on the steps. More of the strange gray trees were sticking out of the hillside. Instead of branches, each was topped by a crown of vertical fronds that looked like the gills of a salamander. Some of these dangled bundles of fruit, little spheres the size of grapes but transparent orange in colour, like fish roe. The wind was shaking the fruits free, and they fell and bounced on the steps, splitting open to release clouds of grayish powder. They weren't quite trees, Steve thought... they were more like some kind of gigantic mushroom.

Halfway down the steps, next to one of the trees, was some kind of shaggy gray and white animal. It was doglike in profile but the size of a horse, with a mane not unlike a lion's, and it was twisting and writhing, shrieking in pain. Its hindquarters were embedded in the stone stairs, while it pawed at the steps with forelimbs that looked unpleasantly like human arms. Its mouth was full of sharp teeth, including a pair of fangs like those on a saber-toothed tiger.

For a moment nobody could do anything but stare. Then Steve shook himself out of it, grabbed the women, and hurried them down the steps. They had to pass unpleasantly close to the dying animal, but it was stuck fast, and as long as they stayed out of its reach, they were in no danger. Just below it the stairs gave way, a few feet above the level of the square, to swampy earth covered with multicoloured mosses and weird, spike-like plants as tall as a person. The top of a delivery truck was visible in one spot, protruding from the ground with a plant growing right through it and a blue-black beetle the size of a cat embedded in the corner.

A hundred feet from the epicenter, the disturbed area came to an abrupt end. The wet ground crumbled under Steve's feet, and he and the others slid down it as the edge collapsed and ran the rest of the way to take shelter in the cathedral.

People inside ran to help them up, as more survivors sought refuge. The time transfer had stopped short of the front doors, but not all the anachronisms that had appeared were buried in modern material. More giant insects, like beetles but with enormously long legs and with their eyes on side-facing stalks like a hammerhead shark, had found their way inside. Some were on their backs, waving legs and antennae in the air, while others percent on things slowly beating their wings but unable to fly. Terrified people were attacking these with candelabras, with boots, with anything they could use.

"I'm sorry!" Connie sobbed, clinging to Natalia. "I couldn't... you understand? I couldn't let her... I couldn't..." she was barely able to speak. It was the first time Steve had ever seen Konstantina Fyodorova lose her composure. When she'd _pretended_ to be upset after killing the scientists in Dvenadstat, she'd seemed calm but depressed. Now she was frantic, and Steve realized that he might be finally seeing her genuine emotion.

Steve himself, however, was not panicked – in fact, he was thinking clearly for perhaps the first time in weeks. What he was thinking of was Tony's description of the machine's instabilities. What would happen when the distortion collapsed?

"This is going to get worse," he said.

"What?" Darlene stared at him.

"Tony said that when the field collapses, it gets out of control. We're seeing stuff from another time now, but when that thing shuts down, there'll be more, over a wider area."

"It won't turn off unless we _turn_ it off," Connie said. "The tesseract..."

"I've got an idea," Steve said. "We need one of the empty ones. That was how Tony and I were going to keep it from causing chaos in New York after getting Bucky back." He'd set out to do this in order to _resurrect a dead man_ , Steve thought. He'd set out to do that, and now he'd killed a hundred strangers. Anybody who'd been in the square outside was dead, their bodies fused with the dirt. "But we need to make sure HYDRA doesn't get at the tesseract, too."

Connie looked around, tears still in her eyes, but then she straightened her back and set Natalia on the ground. "I'll do it," she said. "I'll protect it."

"Can you?" asked Steve.

"I got it here," said Connie. "You go back to the plane. Stark's there, and Pym's locked in the safe but at her size she's got lots of air. Tell them I'm sorry... and look after Natalia for me, please."

The last person who'd asked Steve to look after their child was Howard Stark, an hour before he died. Steve nodded.

Connie hesitated a moment, then threw her arms around Steve's neck and kissed him with almost more violence than passion, crushing their mouths together as if to bruise them both. Then she turned and ran for the doors, stopping on the way to kick aside a snail the size of a softball. It hit the stone wall of the church, and its shell shattered.

Steve took Darlene's hand, and Natalia's again. "We're going to the airport," he said. " _Mon Père! Mon Père!_ " Hopefully the priest wasn't still in the basement.

" _Je suis là, mon fils!_ " came the reply, as the priest emerged from the milling crowd of survivors. " _What is happening outside? What are these creatures_?"

" _Ils sont de_..." Steve said, then realized he wasn't sure. The device Connie had put the tesseract into was supposed to counteract one that would materialize an ocean out of a hundred and fifty million years in the past. Did that mean the giant beetles, the mushroom trees, and the creature in the steps were from the distant future? Did it matter? " _I don't know_ ," Steve admitted. " _We have to try to stop it. May I borrow a car? I need to go to the airport_."

" _This way_ ," the priest said.

Was he angry with Connie, Steve wondered, as the man took them to the parking lot behind the building. He wasn't sure yet... and even if he were, there was no time for that now, not until he'd fixed the mess the two of them had made. Once he'd had time to think about it, though, he suspected he would not be nearly so angry with her as he was with himself. After all, Connie had at least been hoping to save somebody who was still _alive_.


	28. Chapter 28: A World out of Time

There'd been nobody on the streets in the city center. Everyone who'd been out and about was now dead, buried in the suddenly materialized earth and trees, and those who'd escaped that had sought shelter indoors. Further from the epicenter people had more options, and a lot of them were trying to flee the city. Women and children were throwing things into cars, while their husbands and fathers used sports or gardening equipment to fight off more gigantic insects. It wasn't just the beetles, but also hairy creatures like six-legged spiders, and black hornets the size of mice, a swarm of which appeared to have killed a small dog and were now tearing it to pieces. As Steve, Darlene, and the children drove towards the airport, traffic got thicker and thicker until it finally ground to a halt.

All around them, people were getting out of their cars and walking. Steve realized that he and the hostages were going to have to do the same.

"Come on," he said, climbing out of the car. "We'll have to walk the rest of the way." _Again_ he'd forgotten to check the time, he realized as he helped Darlene to her feet. He still had no idea how much had passed, beyond that it had been a little over an hour since the countdown began. Not that it mattered, because he already knew that this was taking far too long. Would Connie be able to hold off whoever Viper was sending to get the tesseract? Would she even bother to _try_ when she was the one who'd put it there in the first place, or had she been working for HYDRA herself the whole time?

Steve looked over his shoulder towards the castle. Were there more of the giant mushroom trees now? He could have sworn there weren't that many...

Then there was a tremendous booming sound, like far-away thunder, so low-pitched that it shook the bones. Steve gritted his teeth to stop them rattling, and turned to see what had caused it. His first thought was that the Yugoslavian government had sent in the military and what they'd used heard was a jet breaking the sound barrier, but instead he saw an enormous animal coming up the street. This one was the size of an elephant, but covered with bristly reddish hair. It had a long, thick neck, a piglike snout, and a lot of loose skin hanging below its jaw. As it came closer, it inflated this loose skin into a balloon, tilted its head back, and made another booming noise. Car windshields cracked and dust rose, and all around them the people who'd been heading for the airport in a reasonably orderly fashion began to panic.

Soon the whole crowd was on the move, screaming and climbing over cars, knocking over trash cans and shoving each other out of the way – and it was probably the worst thing that could have happened. The sudden noise and movement seemed to agitate the animal, and it lowered its head and swung its neck against the side of a nearby delivery truck, knocking the vehicle on its side. Then it reared up to bring its heavy forelimbs down on the cab of the vehicle, smashing the windows and crushing anyone who might have been inside. The bag under its chin inflated again, as it prepared to make another noise.

Above Steve and the hostages, a man came out onto the building's fire escape with a rifle fitted to his shoulder. He fired twice. One bullet went through the balloon, popping it into shreds of dangling skin, like a torn flag. The other lodged in the creature's neck, where it appeared to do nothing at all. The animal continued pummeling the truck as if it hadn't even noticed.

"This way!" Steve pulled Darlene and the kids into a side street. He wanted to put a building – and a man with a gun – between his charges and the animal.

The man with the rifle re-loaded and fired again. This time one of the shots hit the animal in the head. _Now_ it noticed him – furious, it charged across the street and smashed into the small apartment block. Belatedly, Steve learned it wasn't strong enough to make a good shield. Bricks showered down and glass smashed, and Steve pushed Darlene and the children to the back of the alley, where a chain-link fence stopped them from going any further. Baby Sam was crying now, and his mother patted his back and murmured in his ear as she tried to quiet him.

When the dust settled, half the building had fallen down in an avalanche of brick, concrete, and twisted rebar across the alleyway entrance. The man with the rifle was nowhere to be seen, but the animal was still standing, hammering on the remains of a wall with its neck. People were screaming and crying, and water from a broken main was fountaining into the air.

Steve thought fast. He _could_ tear apart the fence and give them a way out, he just wasn't sure if he could do it before the animal brought the rest of the building down on top of them. That would also leave this furious monster out on the streets of Sokovia, killing anybody it encountered. Steve couldn't do that when he was the one whose stupid plan had made this all possible.

"Stay here," he told Darlene and the children, as if they had any choice. Then he took a deep breath and scrambled up the pile of rubble, ducking under the swinging neck. He yanked a piece of rebar out of the fallen concrete, then crouched and waited. When it went by again, Steve grabbed the bristly mane down the back of the neck and swung himself over it, yanking the head sharply down. Unprepared, the creature stumbled and fell to its knees with a bellowing cry like an injured horse. Steve twisted the rebar around the animal's neck, and tightened it.

The monster gasped and panted, foam bubbling out of its mouth. It shook is head, trying to dislodge him – Steve hung on harder, with sweat rolling down his neck. His arms began to ache. The animal kept tensing the muscles in its neck, and every time it did, the rebar groaned and holding on got harder. Steve's shoulders felt like they would come apart.

Then, finally, it went limp and fell to the ground, landing hard. Steve could hear its ribs crack from the impact, and its head bounced on the bricks as it rolled onto its side, slamming him into the rubble and trapping him under the heavy neck. He groaned and lay there for a moment while stars danced in front of his eyes. His shoulders ached too much to get up right away.

"Steve!" shrieked Darlene. She climbed the rubble heap herself, her baby still in her arms, to see if he was okay. "Steve! Can you hear me?"

"Yes." He groaned and pushed the neck off of him so he could get up. "I'm okay," he lied, "I'm just fine. Come on, we have to get to the airport." He took her free hand.

They wove their way through the crowds and stopped traffic, shooing away insects as they went. None of the bugs seemed capable of flight, which was one small mercy, and many of the largest were already dead, unable to breathe in an atmosphere that must be very different from the one they'd evolved in. When he looked back, however, he couldn't help the suspicion that the mushroom forest _was_ still growing. The entire anomaly was just getting worse and worse.

Finally, the airport was in front of them. Security had given up on trying to keep people out or make them pay for parking – panicked citizens were just flooding in. Steve commandeered a maintenance van to drive them across the tarmac to the waiting SHIELD plane. It was sitting there exactly as they'd left it, apparently untouched by the chaos, with no sign of anybody on board.

"Wait here," Steve told his charges. He took the stairs three at a time to the door.

At first, there was nothing to see but open overhead compartments and spilled soda, suggesting that a struggle had taken place. For a moment he wondered if Tony and Jane were dead, if he would have _that_ on his conscience as well as everything else, but then he heard a scuffling sound coming from the bathroom. He went to look in the door, and found Fury had rejoined them. He was untying Tony, who'd been trussed up with impressive thoroughness, using what looked like a fire hose.

Fury's back was to Steve, so Tony saw him first.

"Took you long enough!" he said.

"I've been busy!" Steve replied. He pushed past Fury to rip the fire hose apart with his hands, although they were still bruised and cut from hanging on to the rebar as he strangled the angry animal. "Where's the other tesseract box?"

"Still in the safe," said Tony, trying to rub some feeling back into his fingertips.

With Janet Pym. "Nick, go open it and let Janet out," Steve ordered. "Tony, get Darlene and the kids settled. I'm gonna find us some transportation."

"Darlene?" Tony stared at him. "You mean Mrs. Wilson? What's _she_ doing here?"

"Connie didn't explain?" asked Steve, then shook his head. Stupid question – of course she hadn't. She hadn't had time. "Never mind. They've activated another time machine. We have to get the device into a tesseract box, or things will get way worse."

"Got it," said Tony.

Steve got out of the way and let Tony and Fury head for the cockpit. Darlene was already getting the kids into seats, making sure Natalia had her seat belt on. When Steve went to the door and looked out, Darlene caught his arm.

"We're not leaving?" she asked.

"Not yet," Steve said. "We have to fix this, first." This was _his fault_.

He needed a way to get back into the city quickly... a car wouldn't do it because the streets were blocked with people trying to get _out_ of the city. No way anybody would make it _in_. An airplane wouldn't be able to land where he needed it to. It had to be something capable of flight, but maneuverable. He needed a helicopter.

The airport in Sokovia was tiny, but there was a helipad on top of the terminal building – he'd seen it when they'd gotten off the plane a few hours ago. The question was whether there was a chopper to go with it. He hurried down the steps to look at the building without the bulk of the plane in the way. Thank heavens, there it was, sitting on the helipad with its engines running. He just had to get to it before it flew away.

"Meet me at the helicopter!" he called to Tony and Fury.

"What helicopter?" asked Fury.

"There's only one!" Steve replied.

He crossed the tarmac in long strides and climbed the exterior maintenance stairs to reach the helipad – and he was just in time. A woman in a wide-shouldered green suit was already there, surrounded by her bodyguards and about to get into the vehicle. She stopped, staring, as Steve climbed onto the edge of the roof and hurried towards her. Then he stopped, in turn, and held up his hands as he realized her guards had guns. Damn it... after all that had already happened today, the last thing he needed now was to get shot at.

"Do any of you speak English?" he asked, yelling over the sound of the rotor.

The woman stood up straight. She was quite short, with an angular face not at all softened by generous makeup, and steel-gray hair in a bun. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"My name is Steve Rogers." He licked his lips, wondering whether to clarify or not, and then decided he had nothing to lose. "I'm Captain America. I need your helicopter."

"What for?" she demanded.

"To get back to the castle," Steve said. "My friends and I, we can fix this!"

" _Fix_ this?" the woman said, incredulous. "There are trees and monsters sprouting out of the streets and you can _fix_ this?"

"Yes, I can!" Steve insisted. "Uh, are you in charge here?"

"I'm the mayor!" she snapped.

She looked like she might say something else, but one of her aides grabbed her arm and said something in a foreign language. Whatever it was clearly wasn't meant for Steve's ears, but he couldn't whisper with the helicopter running. Steve caught a word or two as the man spoke in the mayor's ear, but nothing he could understand. She clearly understood it, though. She yanked her arm out of his grip and stepped away, raising her chin to look Steve in the eye.

"If you can fix this," she told him, "you'd better do it!"

"Thank you!" Steve opened the helicopter door, and the pilot climbed out so he could get in. The mayor and her aides stood back, expecting him to take off, but instead he grabbed the radio and set it to the frequency their communications equipment had been on. "Nick! Tony! Can you hear me?"

"They're busy, but I can hear you," said Janet. "What's going on?"

"Tell Tony to bring the equipment up here, and... uh..." he frowned. Tony couldn't fly, Fury couldn't fly, and Steve had a basic idea of how to fly a plane but none at all how a helicopter might be different. "Can you fly a helicopter?"

"Of course I can!" snorted Janet.

"Great! Leave Tony to look after Darlene and the kids, and get the gear up here!" Janet and Fury would be the most useful help in this situation.

From his vantage point, Steve could see two dark figures leave the plane and hurry down the steps. Beyond was the airport's single runway, and then the city spread out to the foot of the castle hill. Before his eyes, the air shimmered, and Steve saw another mushroom tree materialize at the edge of the grove around the city centre. A shower of something – whether fruit, insects, or birds he couldn't tell – fell from its fronds, and smoke rose at its base as something caught fire.

It _was_ getting worse, he realized. The affected area was growing. They had to _do_ something.

A minute later there was the familiar rushing sound as Janet returned to full size. Steve moved over to let her take the pilot's seat. Another person arrived shortly after, and Steve was startled and confused to see not Fury, but Tony.

"I thought I told you to stay with the plane," he said, as Tony climbed in the back seat.

"Fury told me to come," Tony replied. "I know how this stuff works, and I'm not helpless! I brought everything – the extra box, the fake tesseract, and a couple of my own projects, too!"

Steve couldn't send him back, he realized. That would take extra time. "Keep your cool," he said. "We have no idea what we're going to find in there. I think it's warping things from the future instead of the past."

The helicopter lifted off, and Janet steered right towards the center of the mess. On the way they passed through a shower of small insects that splattered against the windshield like bullets, leaving greenish goo behind. Janet hovered a moment, hoping the rotors would blow away the remains. Then the air shivered, there was a scream of torn metal, and everybody shouted in alarm as the helicopter turned nose-down. Steve reached to grab Janet and Tony, to shield them with his body during the crash, but they weren't falling. Instead, they were _hanging_ in midair.

He turned in his seat to look. The tail of the helicopter, just behind the cab, was stuck in the side of a newly-appeared mushroom tree. This one was infested by a red-leafed vine, and the vine in turn was swarming with fat, glossy black ants. The weight of the cab had bent the helicopter's tail, and now they were suspended a hundred feet above the metal roof of the cathedral.

"Whoa! Oh, hey! Get off!" Tony exclaimed, as the ants started crawling into the cockpit. He held up the tesseract case to use as a weapon.

"No, no, no," Janet said. "I've got this!" She shut her eyes and concentrated. A few moments went by, and then the ants suddenly stopped what they were doing and turned around, crawling back out onto the tree.

Tony breathed out. "That was pretty cool," he said.

Janet held up a finger. "Don't interrupt me," she said.

Under her silent direction, the ants went to work. The vine was, in places, as thick as a man's leg, but they began unwinding it from the trunk, gnawing away the tendrils that had wormed their way into the flesh of the mushroom tree to support it. More ants joined in, until thousands were working on separating the vine from the tree all the way to the ground. The ones at the top held onto it with hundreds of mandibles and carried it out to the helicopter undercarriage. There, to Steve's astonishment, they tied it in a complicated knot.

"Thank you, ladies," said Janet, and climbed out to shimmy down the vine. The ants obligingly got out of her way. Steve made sure Tony went first, and he followed.

"How are you _doing_ that?" he asked Janet, as the ants continued to make sure there would be climbable vine below them.

"It's one of Hank's inventions," she replied. "Ants, bees, and wasps communicate chemically. If you can learn their language, you can tell them what to do."

They reached the bottom, and put their feet on the tiles that footed the cathedral's dome. Steve worked his way forward, climbing over gutters and peaks, to the front spire. There he could look across the square, and get a better view of what they were about to walk into.

The affected area was definitely much bigger. The animal embedded in the steps had died, but there were other creatures moving around in the fronds of the mushroom trees, or skittering up and down the trunks. Insects were everywhere, and one tree had fallen and was lying across the square on its side. Whether it had already been that way or whether this was a result of being whisked across time was impossible to say.

"Can you fly across the square to the castle with our gear?" Steve asked Janet.

"I can't fly full-sized," she replied, shaking her head. "And I can't shrink anything I can't fit in the suit with me. Hank had all the vehicles."

Which meant they were at the bottom of the Atlantic now. "Then we'll have to walk," Steve said.

There were stairs down from the belltower. Halfway there, they stopped as they found another insect in their way. This one resembled a giant scorpion with no tail but huge pincers, and it reared up, clacking its fangs at them. Janet focused, and the black ants came swarming down the stairs all around them to pick the other creature up and carry it off.

"Keep those around," Steve said. "They look useful."

When they reached the bottom of the stairs they found that the forest floor had spread into to the building, burying the door to the first level. They had to return to the mezzanine and find another staircase there. From the balcony, they found that while light was still coming in the stained glass windows, the power was out now, and the building was full of earth and plants and bugs of the distant future. The mushroom tree that had fused with their helicopter had sprouted right through the altar and main dome, and a woman who'd tried to save a couple of icons was now visible only as hands emerging from a stump, forever frozen in the act of reaching.

Steve shut his eyes as he descended the staircase. There was nothing more he could do for these people. He was done with the dead, and it was time to save the _living_.

It was lucky that somebody had left the front doors of the cathedral open before the anomaly had expanded to encompass the building – otherwise they would have had to break a window to get outside. Steve used the doors and the columns around them as cover while he looked outside, and found himself gazing through an unearthly woodland. Between the towering mushroom trees were more of the spike-like plants, and things with bulbous fleshy leaves creeping across the forest floor. Thick vines wound up the trees, some of them similar to the one Steve, Janet, and Tony had climbed, others sunken into the trunks as if eating them away, and trailing long willow-like fronds that bristled with short, spiky leaves and tiny white flowers. In other places, splotches of lichen glowed faintly blue. The brush was rustling with unknown creatures.

"It's like something from another planet," Tony whispered.

"Keep your eyes open," Steve said.

They headed off across the squelching ground. Things chittered high up in the trees and shadows darted by, although by the time Steve looked up, whatever had caused it was always gone. He remembered the wolf-baboon embedded in the steps, and the pig-elephant he'd strangled, and wondered what else was lurking in this place.

When they came to the fallen mushroom tree, they found that its trunk was going to be far too large to climb over – but it happened to have fallen across a creek, and with nothing to feed it, the water had drained. They could climb down into the mud and pebbles at the bottom and duck _under_ the trunk, although it was hard to do so without thinking about what might happen if it cracked, or if the soil gave way.

Things like legless, flattened crayfish were squirming among the rocks on the stream bottom. Steve tried not to step on any as he made his way by. The crayfish kept grabbing at short blue-black fronts with their pincers. These looked like plants and appeared to be anchored to the bottom, but they squirmed when the crayfish grabbed them, and bled when the pincers cut in.

As they reached the other side of the trunk, Steve heard gunfire. He crouched down behind a clump of curiously hairy reeds, and pulled Tony down with him. Janet vanished as she shrank out of sight. The shooting was followed by a boom from another of the pig-elephants, and voices shouting. Were they speaking German?

Janet reappeared next to Steve, making him jump. "There are twelve of them, I think," she whispered. "All in black. They're distracted by the animal right now, but they're still between us and the stairs."

Twelve of them. Connie was a formidable hand-to-hand fighter but she couldn't take twelve people with guns – and who was to say there weren't already others inside with her? "You go ahead," Steve told Janet. "Tony, stick close to me."

Tony nodded, clutching the case with his gear against his chest. Was he finally understanding how dangerous this was? Steve actually kind of hoped not. It wouldn't help them for Tony to suddenly chicken out _now_.

Janet shrank again. Steve moved forward, keeping low to the ground and making sure Tony was right behind him. He paused to let an animal slide across the ground in front of him – at first he thought it was a snake, but it was more like a giant, scaly, eyeless worm. It moved silently, and Steve did his best to emulate it.

Moisture from the ground and from the plants around them was soaking into his clothing. The cold temperatures, which must be very different fro the apparently tropical environment where all these things had come from, were making frost form on the leaves.

Up ahead, there was the crash and vibration of something heavy hitting the ground. Steve peered around one of the mushroom trees. At the foot of the steps, only a yard or so from the remains of the trapped baboon-wolf, a pig-elephant was lying dead. The man who'd shot it was pumping his arms in the air, cheering, and most of his companions had joined in – except for the commander, who put up with it for a few seconds, then bellowed an order. The group fell into line again and began climbing the steps to the castle.

Suddenly, the commander dropped to his knees, howling in pain, and then fell backwards into the group following him. Then one near the back began firing his gun haphazardly into the air. It had to be Janet, Steve realized – which meant this was their chance.

"Come on!" Steve grabbed Tony's wrist and they darted forward, past the fallen pig-elephant and up the steps. The HYDRA group was trying to reorganize, but Steve wasn't going to give them a chance. He grabbed the nearest one from behind and pushed her down the steps, then moved on to fight the next one. Tony followed him up and hit a guy in the back of the head with the metal tesseract case. The operative staggered backwards, slipped on the steps, and fell.

Tony glanced at Steve to make sure he'd seen that, then ran on ahead. He pushed through the remaining HYDRA soldiers, jumped over one of the dead giant beetles, and continued on up.

Steve threw another operative down the steps and then called out to him. "Stop! Tony!" Stupid kid, didn't he realize he'd put himself right in front of half a dozen still-standing agents with guns?

Sure enough, one of them took a shot at him. It hit him square in the middle of the back.

When Steve had recognized the Winters Soldier, it had been as if time stopped. He wished it could have stopped now, allowing him to get to Tony and get him out of harm's way. Instead it kept moving all too quickly, as Tony fell to the stone pavement at the top of the staircase and then just lay there like a dropped doll. Steve had stared at Bucky's dead face for what had felt like an eternity. He had only a split second to take in Tony's fall, but both images were equal in his mind. He would see them for the rest of his life, every time he closed his eyes.

Steve punched an operative who tried to rush him, and then took the steps four at a time to the top. He couldn't tell if Tony had been killed or not, but it probably didn't matter. If the bullet had hit his spine, then dead or alive, he wasn't getting up.


	29. Chapter 29: Battle for the Tesseract

As Steve reached the top of the stairs, he was encouraged to see Tony's arms moving, and then astonished to seem him actually getting up, at least as far as his hands and knees. Steve grabbed the boy's arm and dragged him behind the cover of the giant mushroom tree, then turned him around to feel his back. The bullet was there, but it was embedded in some kind of body armor, made of thin metal plates.

"Bullet-proof vest," said Steve, relieved.

"No, something better," Tony said proudly. He arched his back, and the bullet fell out and bounced away on the pavement.

"Better?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "I designed parts for the space shuttle, man! What did you think I was doing at SHIELD? Sitting on my ass all day?"

A man came charging around the tree towards them. Steve shoved Tony behind him and got ready to take the hit, but Janet materialized behind the attacker, took him by the collar, and dug some kind of electric shock weapon into his neck. He went down twitching.

"Man-bonding later!" she shouted, "save the world now!" Then she vanished again.

Steve glanced at Tony to make absolutely sure he was all right. Tony gave a nod, and the two of them rounded the tree to the broken castle doors.

"Connie!" Steve shouted ahead of them. She would probably immediately attack anyone who came inside. "Connie, it's us!" He got no reply, so he headed inside.

Immediately, he dropped to the ground and rolled back out again – there were another six or seven HYDRA operatives already inside, all of them armed. Bullets sprayed the doors and the tree trunk as Steve ran for cover. What had happened to Connie, he wondered, and then decided there was no time to worry about it right now. Connie was almost certainly dead. They could recover her body later.

But first he had to get himself and Tony inside. Steve looked around. One of the mushroom trees protruding from the wall had a thorny vine wrapped around it, which looked thick and strong enough to support a human being. Steve grabbed one of the dangling tendrils, ignoring the pain as the needles bit into his flesh, and began pulling himself up. High up in the wall there was a window. He ought to be able to get in there.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tony crouched at the base of the tree, unreeling some kind of tube from one of his pockets. What did he have in mind? Whatever it was, Steve hoped it worked as well as his armor.

Steve wiggled through the window, and eased his weight onto the metal scaffolding that was holding up most of the roof. There, he waited a half-second for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, then surveyed the scene. There was no sign of Connie. In the middle of the room, a circle of men with assault rifles were guarding the tesseract, waiting for the equipment to safely remove it from the time machine. There was no scaffolding directly overtop them, but the largest of the original rafters was still intact there. Would it support Steve, or would the rotten wood break underneath him?

He slipped down from the scaffold onto the rafter, very carefully so as not to make a nose. It held. He lay on his stomach, and began shimmying out into the centre of the room.

Suddenly, the door was blasted off its hinges in a burst of blue light, taking half the mushroom tree's trunk with it. The startled guards dropped into defensive stances as they turned towards the source of the explosion. There was Tony, standing in the smoking hole. He had something strapped to his hand and arm, attached to a tube that ran down into the case he was carrying – it must be part of the device he'd used to siphon energy into the fake tesseract, except now he was pulling it _out_ again, and letting it loose with enormous destructive power. As Steve watched, he gritted his teeth and flexed his fingers, and fired off a second bolt. This one blew away two of the men on the right, furthest from the tesseract itself.

Steve had seen that before – tesseract-based weapons that simply disintegrated their targets. Was _that_ what Tony had been doing, in between inventing new and better body armor, re-creating old HYDRA technology to use against them? The idea made Steve feel a little sick. Nobody should have that kind of power, not even the people who were technically the 'good guys'.

He would be having a word with Peggy about that, later. She had no right to ask that of Tony. Tony was a kid. He didn't know what he was messing with.

The weapon Tony had built was much more powerful than any of the operatives' guns or explosives, and they knew that – but it also meant he could not fire directly _at_ the tesseract and the machine it was powering. If he damaged one of those, he could cause some kind of cataclysm. The men knew that, too, and were already crowding closer to it, a circle of guns, pointing out.

They were so focused on the threat presented by Tony, however, that they left a gap in the line. Steve dropped from the rafter to land on his feet behind them, and punched the nearest one in the small of the back. The man dropped to the ground with a shriek of pain. A second one whirled around to face Steve, but Steve was faster. He kicked the gun out of the man's hand and took him down with a solid fist to the jaw.

The remaining two backed up, trying to get space to fire. Tony blew another one away, and Steve went at the last, knocking his legs out from under him, and then breaking his nose when he tried to get up.

He looked around, panting. Three mooks disintegrated, two unconscious, and one broken hip. They weren't going to be any more trouble.

"All right," he told Tony. "Get in here!"

"Oh, good, because I don't think this thing will fire again!" Smoke was rising from Tony's device as he pulled it off his arm and dropped it.

"Hurry, hurry!" Steve remembered the traffic-choked streets at the outer edges of town. Anyone stuck in that would be able to see the anomaly coming, but in the crush of people and vehicles, they wouldn't be able to stay ahead of it. The longer they took at this, the more people were going to die.

Tony knelt down and opened the case with the tesseract boxes, but then he hesitated. "You said there was another time machine."

"Downstairs," Steve agreed. "We can grab it after we turn this off."

"Wait, was there power for it?" asked Tony. "Because if we can activate that one... we've got _two_ tesseract boxes. If we can shut them both down at the same time, we might be able to fix this _properly_. Get rid of all the trees and bugs and stuff because the fields will cancel out."

Get rid of all the trees and bugs – and maybe restore the human beings who'd died? That was the kind of thinking that had gotten them all into this mess... and yet Tony's face was earnest. He really thought he could do it.

"Let me try!" he said.

Steve nodded. "All right – second door, it's in the narrow tower, the stairs are tight but you'll have an easier time with it than I did. You'll see the blue light. It's in the last cell in the row. Do you have a flashlight?"

"I'll manage," said Tony. He pushed the metal case with the tesseract boxes into Steve's hands, and ran out of the room.

That left Steve himself to guard the tesseract. He gathered up the guns and ammunition from the fallen soldiers and positioned himself between the table and the door. What had happened to Connie, he wondered again... he doubted she'd have let them take her prisoner. Was she still here somewhere, alive or dead?

"Connie?" he called out. "Connie! Are you here?" She probably thought she _deserved_ to die defending the tesseract, he thought, since she was the one who'd put it there. Of all the people who felt like they deserved punishment, why was _Steve_ never the one who actually got it?

Then he heard a sound. It was nothing more than a whisper, barely audible over the sounds of shouting and car horns and sirens from outside, but at the same time it echoed in the giant space of the castle hall. Steve moved towards it, stumbling over one of the fallen bodies.

"Connie?" he repeated.

There she was, lying in a corner and clutching a wad of cloth – her own blouse – to the right side of her chest. The fabric was soaked with blood. She'd been shot, he realized. It was on the wrong side for her heart, but had definitely punctured a lung.

"Connie." He took her pulse at the neck. It was faint, and fast, but it was there. Her eyes were half-open, so Steve waved a hand in front of them, trying to get her attention. " _Connie_ ," he repeated.

Very slowly, as if it required enormous effort on her part, her eyes opened. After a moment of staring at infinity, she found his face, but she did not speak. There was blood at the corners of her mouth.

"You're going to be all right," Steve told her. Her eyes started to drift shut, so he snapped his fingers to get her attention again. "Look at me, okay? You're gonna be all right. We'll get you to a hospital." He'd seen injuries like hers during the war, and as far as he could tell she was doing the right thing – applying pressure and not letting air get into the wound as she tried to breath. The sooner they got her into surgery, the better her chances of survival would be. "Just hang in there."

He hoped Tony hurried. They'd be able to tell if he succeeded in starting up the other time machine, Steve thought – the mushroom trees and other oddities would all disappear. How would they know if he'd _failed_?

The light in the room dipped, and Steve raised his head. There were a set of silhouettes now in the castle doorway: three men and two women, none of whom were Fury or Janet. Steve glanced down at Connie, and then at the tesseract. Connie couldn't speak, but Steve could guess what she would tell him to do if she could. Protect the tesseract, defeat HYDRA, and create a world where Natalia could grow up safely.

Steve could do that.

He picked up an assault rifle and went to stand directly behind the machine. The HYDRA people raised their weapons, but did not fire. They couldn't afford to hit the time machine or the tesseract itself, any more than Tony could have.

"You want it?" Steve asked. "Come here and get it!"

The men and one of the women rushed him. Steve scooped up the small television set off the table and threw it at them – it hit one of the men in the head, shattering the screen, and he felt. Steve vaulted over the table and picked up one of the huge boards that had gone flying when Tony blew the doors down. Using that he hit the woman in the back, then rammed the end of it into the nearest man's stomach. The last one hit Steve in the back of the head with the butt of his gun, and Steve fell to his knees as if dazed. Then, when the man raised the weapon again to deliver a second blow, Steve rolled backwards to knock him over, grabbed his weapon, and punched him in the face.

Four out of four in under twenty seconds. Bucky would have been proud of him.

Steve stood up again, the gun in his hands, and confronted the last of the group – a woman. He had a damned good idea who she might be.

Dressed in a short green jacket over black fatigues, Viper stepped forward and drew a sword. It was a narrow, flexible blade like a fencing foil, but the light glinted black on metal that should have been silver. Poison, Steve thought. After he'd survived her last attempt, she wouldn't try anything as basic as rattlesnake venom.

"You brought a sword to a gunfight?" Steve asked.

"You brought a gun to a swordfight," Viper replied. "You have to hit me, Captain. All I have to do is touch you." She held up a gloved hand. It, too, was gleaming black. Tony might have invented his own form of bullet-proof vest, but Viper was wearing traditional body armor. Bullets would probably sting, but they wouldn't kill her.

"You can still drop the gun and get your friend back, Captain," she said. "In fact, I've been thinking we ought to pull him out, ourselves. We've been trying to buy him from the Russians for years but they wouldn't sell such a valuable asset. This might be our chance."

Steve's teeth clenched, and his hands on the gun began to shake with rage – but there was enough reason left in him to realize what she was trying to do. Viper wanted him to get angry and charge her, so she could stab him with her poisoned sword. He'd caused all this by behaving exactly the way this woman wanted him to. He wasn't going to make that mistake again.

"You want the tesseract?" he repeated. " _Come here and get it_."

Viper did not move. "Are you _afraid_ of me, Captain?" she asked. "Or are you just too much of a gentleman to hit a woman who hasn't hit you first?"

Steve stood his ground.

She tried another tactic. "How do you know that standing there guarding the tesseract for me isn't what I want you to do?" she asked.

That hadn't occurred to him... but if it had been true, he thought, she wouldn't have said it. She just would have kept talking about other things. Steve was done being manipulated by Viper. He'd made a decision and he was going to stick to it.

"I've got another fifty troops on the way," Viper went on. "Do you think a swarm of insects is going to stop them? Ants don't last long against flamethrowers, no matter how big they are."

Steve wasn't even going to talk to her, he decided. She wasn't worth answering.

So far Viper had been looking Steve in the eye. Now her gaze drifted, and fell on Connie in the corner. Steve stiffened, and Viper noticed it.

"Really?" she asked. "She _caused_ all this, and you still have feelings for her? You stopped loving Carter for less."

Steve kept his mouth shut. Rage was bubbling inside him, like the cauldron of a volcano, ready to explode out at any moment. He had to keep a lid on it. He could not leave the tesseract unprotected, no matter what she said or did.

Still watching Steve, Viper walked towards Connie's fallen body and prodded it with one toe. Connie twitched, and Viper raised her foil to hold the point over Connie's chest. Steve swallowed. Connie was already dying. She was in no position to survive a shot of poison. Steve himself had barely struggled through the venom Viper had given him last time, and whatever she had now was probably specifically designed for _him_. Connie wouldn't stand a chance.

Viper began to smile. She thought she had him.

Steve thought fast. He had to keep a handle on himself. If he couldn't outfight her without falling into her trap, he was going to have to _out-think_ her.

He dropped his rifle and grabbed the time machine and its support structure, tesseract and all, off the table to hold it above his head, as if he were going to throw it on the floor and smash it.

"You wouldn't," said Viper. "You have no idea what would happen if you did."

Steve remained silent, his eyes locked to hers. She would know perfectly well that he'd been prepared to die fighting Schmidt. He was prepared to die fighting _her_ , too.

She raised the foil a little, muscles tensed to stab.

Steve swung the machine towards the floor.

"Don't!" Viper shrieked, and ran to grab the machine before it could hit the stone. At the last moment, Steve swung it aside and kicked her in the mouth, sending her over backwards. She rolled and staggered to her feet, her mouth bleeding and her eyes burning with rage. He'd tricked her before she could trick him, and she was furious.

Steve ran at her, swinging the machine again. She brought up her arm to block him from hitting her with it, and managed to catch it below where the tesseract sat, pushing the blow away to the side. Steve backed off again, and the two of them circled each other. A few more steps, and Steve would be solidly between Viper and the foil she'd dropped next to Connie. He could see the moment she realized this – her eyes went to it, lying on the floor, and her lips curled back in a snarl. She hated being outsmarted. He could use that.

A flash of orange outside caught Steve's eye. The men with flamethrowers had arrived to take on Janet's ants.

Steve was breathing heavily. He had to stay in control of himself, even if that took every ounce of energy in him. If he attacked Viper blindly, he might break the time machine or dislodge the tesseract, and either would be disastrous. If _she_ attacked _him_ , the same might happen. He feinted with it, and she flinched, backing away but also moving to the left. She was trying to pull the same trick he had a moment earlier, and circle Steve to get back to her poisoned foil. Steve stepped into her path and kicked the table over, blocking the way. Viper darted in the other direction, but that way was blocked by the giant trunk of a mushroom tree. She leaned against it, and her gloved hand sank in slightly as the tissue that came in contact with the poison died.

Now what? Steve had her cornered, but he had no weapon except for one he dared not use. The gun he'd dropped was too far away. So was Viper's foil, and the tesseract weapon Tony had build, which was still lying discarded by the door. More men were on their way in. As soon as they'd finished incinerating the ants, Steve would be stuck between them and Viper.

Suddenly, the air shimmered, and the mushroom tree vanished. Viper, unprepared, lost her balance and staggered sideways, and there were cries of surprise from outside. Steve's heart gave a hopeful leap. That had to mean that Tony had re-activated the second time machine, and its field digging into the past was canceling out the one that had brought all these things from the distant future. That was good, but now they had a limited time. The machine downstairs would only run for a few minutes before it was out of power, and who knew what would happen when _that_ collapsing distortion met _this_ one, still stable with the unending power source of the tesseract itself.

Having gotten her balance again, Viper ran for her foil. Steve swung the machine as if to bring it down on her head, and she had to drop to her knees and grab one of the struts that held the tesseract in so that he could not smash it into the floor. She had a good grip, but Steve's was stronger. He easily tore it out of her hands again, but she used that leverage to pull herself to her feet and swing under his arm. Once again, she was after her sword.

Steve ran after her, but this time he was too late. She scooped the weapon up and swung at him, and for lack of anything else Steve had to use the time machine to block. Viper thrust again, and this time he wasn't so lucky – the sword sliced through his sleeve, leaving a piece of it dangling free. The skin underneath burned. Steve hoped he hadn't gotten too high a dose.

Viper had the upper hand now, and she knew it. She struck again and again, and he had to block again and again. Footsteps and motion told him that more operatives had rushed through the open doors of the castle. They had flamethrowers and could have used them, but they hung back, not wanting to set Viper on fire and not sure what to do about the fact that Steve had the tesseract. They were waiting for orders.

Whatever else happened, Steve thought grimly, he was not letting go of this machine.

Viper's repeated blows drove him back towards the doorway. The men there got out of his way, afraid of the tesseract, but Viper ran after him. He saw something move over by where Connie was lying, and realized it was Janet, returning from miniature to normal size. She would look after Connie.

On the floor by the door was Tony's discarded weapon... and the box that had held the fake tesseract. It was lying there, unfolded into two cubes, dark and empty. Steve looked up again, and saw Tony himself appear in the doorway on the far side of the room. He waved his arms urgently, telling Steve they had to hurry.

Steve got an idea. Tony had built several things for this trip and they'd all worked – they could continue to work. Tony didn't need Steve's protection. Tony was more than capable of protecting himself.

"Tony!" he shouted. "Come here and help!"

Tony didn't question it. He ran towards Steve. Several of the soldiers fired at him, but the bullets, while they clearly stung, bounced off his legs and chest without penetrating the armor under his clothes. He stumbled, staggered, and kept coming. Viper whirled around to run him through, but the plating that stopped the bullets was more than proof against a relatively slow and flexible sword thrust. The blade stopped dead in the middle of his chest.

That was the opportunity Steve needed. With the tesseract and machine still in his other hand, he swept Viper's legs out from under her, threw her to the ground, and straddled her chest. Tony stepped on her right wrist, pinning her sword arm to the floor. She reached up to grab Steve's face with her poison-gloved left hand, but he put the tesseract in between himself and her, forcing her to grab the machine instead.

"Get rid of the sword," he ordered Tony through clenched teeth. "But don't touch it!"

Tony stamped on her hand with his other foot and then kicked the weapon away. It skittered across the floor to a stop.

Steve looked up at the men surrounding them. Viper had promised fifty, but there were only eight. "Get out or she dies," he said.

"Let him kill me," Viper ordered. "Just get the tesseract!"

The men began to move forward.

Tony reached and scooped up the weapon he'd made. One end of the hose was stuck to the box of the fake tesseract – he ripped that off and put it on a corner of the real one. The other end was in the hand piece, which Tony didn't have time to put on properly. Instead he just pulled on a part of it, and a burst of energy blew the eight operatives away all at once. Suddenly the room was empty. It was just Steve, Tony, Viper... and Connie and Janet, crouched by the far wall.

Tony threw away his weapon, which was now actually on fire and quite thoroughly useless, and waved to Janet.

"You help hold her down," he ordered as she came to join them. "Set your watch for... make it ninety seconds, then put the time machine in the box. If I do the same thing downstairs at the same time, both fields should collapse harmlessly at once!"

"Do we _have_ ninety seconds?" asked Steve.

"I hope so," Tony replied. "That's as fast as I think I can get back down there."

Janet took over kneeling on Viper's sword arm, and she and Tony both set their watches. Tony took the second tesseract box and ran out of the room.

Viper herself seemed to have given up struggle. Maybe she knew when she was beaten, and wasn't going to fight any more for the time being. Or maybe she was merely aware that if the wormhole collapsed while she, too, was still in the middle of the affected area, she was likely to die along with the rest of them.

"How do I open this thing?" Janet asked, fumbling with the tesseract box.

"I don't know, Tony always just opened it. I think you just pull the sides," said Steve.

"Aha! I got it!" Janet unfolded it into two boxes, and held it above the time machine, her hands shaking. "I hope I can close it again! Can you see my watch?" She moved her arm, twisting into a slightly awkward position so that he'd have a view of he wrist.

"Eighteen seconds," Steve read off the digital face.

"Count down for me," she told him.

Steve hoped her watch was in good sync with Tony's. "Ten... nine... eight... seven..."

She moved the box to just above the time machine, licking her lips.

"Six... five... four..."

Even Viper was holding her breath now.

"Three... two... one... close!" shouted Steve.

Janet slammed the box down on top of the time machine and pushed the two cubes back together. The edges of them seemed to slice easily through the struts the machine was mounted in. There was high-pitched sound and a crackle of blue energy, and then silence except for the sound of heavy breathing. Steve's ears rang for a moment, and then that faded away, leaving only the distant sounds of the city outside.

"Oh, my god." Janet was so relieved she giggled. "We did it!"

Steve went limp – and Viper chose that moment to act. She ripped her hand out from underneath Janet's knee and grabbed Steve's face. He howled as whatever she had on her glove ate into his skin. Janet shrank abruptly to avoid being the next target. In a red haze of pain, Steve saw Viper scoop up the fallen tesseract...

Then there was a bang of gunfire, and Viper fell limp on top of Steve.

Fighting the urge to scrub at his eyes, Steve squinted across the room and just managed to make out Connie, sitting up and holding the gun he'd dropped at the beginning of the fight. They made eye contact for a moment, and then she, too, slumped back to the ground.

Tony came hurrying back into the room, clutching the second tesseract box against his chest, and stopped short, staring, when he saw Steve sitting there with his face burned and Viper bleeding on top of him. "Shit," he said. "What happened?"

"Get a radio and call Fury," said Steve. "Or get a phone and call 911. Connie needs a hospital."

Janet reappeared and touched down next to him. "So do you," she said. "Leave it to me."

* * *

A few minutes later, medical personnel were carrying Connie on a stretcher down the stairs of the castle, while Steve sat on the bottom step and let a pair of EMTs douse his face and arm with distilled water to wash away the rest of the toxin. The affected muscles kept twitching, and Steve hoped he wouldn't have a permanent tic. It wasn't that he was vain, it was just that a lot of people had put a lot of work into enhancing his body and they'd all seemed so proud of the result. Scarring it would be like throwing acid on somebody's sculpture.

In the square at the bottom of the steps, people and vehicles were back to where they'd been before the time machine had tried to re-write the landscape, but something was wrong. Medics and police were talking to people who looked lost and confused. One of them, Steve saw, was the priest he'd spoken to in the cathedral.

" _Mon Père_!" Steve called out. " _Are you all right?_ "

" _Père_?" the man looked at Steve in startlement. " _Are you my son_?"

Steve shook his head. " _No_ ," he said. " _I'm... you're a priest. Aren't you?_ "

The old man looked down at his clothing, and then held his head in both hands as the police woman who'd been escorting him patted his back. " _I don't know_ ," he said. " _I remember nothing_."

Steve looked around, and saw half a dozen similar conversations happening. Nobody who'd been in the affected area seemed to have any idea what was going on.

A medic came to put a blood pressure cuff on Steve. "What's wrong with these people?" Steve asked her.

"We not sure," she replied, in broken English. "The people who were in the ground. They do not remember."

 _The people who'd been in the ground_... a shiver went down Steve's spine. All those people had died when they were trapped in the transported material, and had then been freed when the second time machine turned on. The fact that they'd come back alive instead of dead suggested that they'd been reconstructed by the machine, just as Tony's pet dinosaur had. Had their memories not come with them? Maybe that was why Crusoe was so tame – because she had no life experience to tell her what was and was not a threat.

That meant, Steve realized, that he couldn't have gotten Bucky back anyway. What came back wouldn't have remembered being Bucky. Had Viper known that?

She was lying on another stretcher, being put into another ambulance. She, too, was still alive, and since help had found her faster, Viper was probably more likely to survive than Connie was. When she came to, he decided, he would have to ask her.


	30. Chapter 30: You Can't Go Home

The first question Steve asked when Fury came to see him in the Sokovian hospital was, "where are Darlene and the kids?"

Fury sat down in the faded plastic chair next to the bed. "They're on their way home," he promised. "Reverend Wilson's going to meet them at LaGuardia. They're fine. You'll be on your way tomorrow, as soon as the doctors here are satisfied that there's no infection."

"There won't be," sighed Steve. He wasn't capable of getting septicemia. Not anymore.

"Yeah, but _they_ don't know that, and SHIELD's proof of it is classified," said Fury.

Steve nodded. So much of his life was still a secret. He'd always kind of expected that would stop when the war was over, but apparently World War II had been nothing but the first act in The War, the 'good fight' he was supposed to be fighting. Whatever _that_ was anymore.

"What about Tony?" he wanted to know.

"Isn't he one of the kids?" Fury asked.

Steve supposed so. "Fine. What about Connie and Viper?"

Fury hesitated a moment, as if unsure whether to tell the truth. "They're here in the hospital," he said, "but they're under constant guard. Madame Director is negotiating with the local government, but the mayor wants them left here to stand trial. Based on the area's history of dealing with anything they consider seditious or terroristic... I think they're both gonna hang."

Steve sat up a little. His arm twinged sharply under a layer of bandages. So, when he furrowed his brow, did his face where Viper had touched him with her poisoned glove. "Connie shot Viper," he said. "She nearly died defending the tesseract. She..."

"She's the one who put it in the machine," said Fury. He put his hands on Steve's shoulders, trying to make him lie down again. "She admits it, and she doesn't excuse herself. She's said she'll stay if they want her to."

She didn't _have_ to, Steve thought angrily. Connie Fyodorova had gotten out of SHIELD lockup last year without leaving a trace – she could sure as hell escape from any prison a little Balkan country could lock her up in. She was staying because she thought she deserved to be punished, and part of him wanted to leave her to it while another wanted to sling her over his shoulder and carry her home like a misbehaving child. Was this how Peggy felt when _he_ did something she thought was unnecessary?

"I want to talk to her," said Steve.

"Are you ready to get up?" Nick asked warily.

"I'm Captain America!" Steve said impatiently. "Hell, yes, I am ready to get up." He'd been in worse pain than this before, and he'd not only gotten up, but gotten up and fought Nazis. The last thing he wanted to do was lie here uselessly while doctors clucked over him. Steve had done enough of that in his childhood. Why had he taken the serum, if he were just going to do the same thing now?

"All right. Well..." Fury moved to help as Steve got to his feet, then paused and backed up a bit when Steve shook his head. "The doctors say you're gonna have some scars," he said. "At least, that's what I think they said. I speak a little Gorani, badly, but the dialect here's a bit different."

"Scars?" asked Steve.

The idea startled him. Steve had healed without scars for years now – the serum had even erased the old one where he'd had his appendix removed as a child. Hearing that he might have them now made him want to get up even more. He wanted to see what Viper's poison had done to him. Steve got to his feet, perhaps a little too fast There was a moment of dizziness, but it passed quickly, and he shrugged off Fury's attempts to help and staggered into the tiny bathroom to look in the mirror.

There was a bandage over half his face, and when Steve pulled it off, he found the results rather disappointing. The damage beneath was almost healed. There was a bit of puckered skin around his eyebrow and a trail of it down his temple, but that was all. He rolled up his sleeve and checked his arm where the sword had nicked him. That place, where the skin had actually been broken and the poison had entered his blood, was worse. It looked as if there were a twisted string under the skin. Would that last, he wondered? Or would it eventually fade away, as all his other scars had?

Fury was standing in the doorway, watching him. "I guess you don't have too many of those, huh?" he asked.

Steve rolled his sleeve back down. "Where's Connie?" he asked.

"Put some pants on," Fury told him.

Steve found a pair of sweat pants, and Fury showed him the way downstairs to an isolation ward. There were guards outside the door, military men with guns. They weren't taking any chances of their prisoners getting away. Steve suspected Connie and Viper could both get out regardless, but as both were recovering from bullet wounds, maybe they'd stay put voluntarily... at least for a while.

Fury showed the guards his SHIELD badge. "Agent Fury and Captain Rogers," he said. "We want to see the prisoners."

The men moved aside.

The ward was meant for treatment of highly contagious diseases. There were thick plastic curtains and complicated equipment everywhere, but none of it was being used. Instead, Connie was propped there alone in the bed, face pale and eyes focused on infinity. Steve approached, still unsteady on his feet, and looked down at her, trying to determine if she were awake.

She looked at his face, then closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Steve," she whispered.

Steve wasn't sure what to say to that. He couldn't tell her it was okay, because it wasn't. He couldn't tell her that it wasn't her fault, because it _was_. Yet at the same time... he wasn't angry with her.

"We're spayed," said Connie. "The girls from the Red Room. Like pet dogs. They don't want us ever having children," she explained, "because they're afraid it's the one thing that might be more important to us than our mission. And they were right." She laughed bitterly, then forced herself to stop as she began to cough, which clearly caused her a lot of pain. A nurse handed her a cup of water, and Connie sipped at it, her hand shaking.

"They were right," she repeated, when she could breathe again. "I had to choose between Natalia and the world, and I did."

"I'm not angry," Steve said, and he understood now why he wasn't. Connie had been willing to throw away everything else she'd ever worked for, in order to save somebody she loved. So had Steve.

"I'm sorry I hit you," she added, her throat still raspy from coughing. "I just... I knew you were the guy who would choose the world."

"No," said a voice from the door, "Steve is the man who would force them to give him both."

Steve looked up and saw Peggy there, and quickly lowered his eyes again. Peggy Carter, however, was not a woman anyone could hide from. When he risked a glance up, she was still there, looking right at him.

"If you'll excuse us, please, Agent Fyodorova," she said, in a voice that was only barely restraining some kind of emotion – Steve couldn't tell what, just yet, but suspected it was bad. "I need to have a word with Captain Rogers."

"Go ahead," said Connie.

Peggy turned and walked back out into the hallway. Steve followed, because he had a pretty good idea that if he didn't, he would be made to.

"Peggy," he said, as the guards shut the door again. "I'm sorry..."

"I should hope you are!" she said, turning to face him again. "What were you _thinking_ , Steve?" she demanded. "Do you have the slightest idea what you almost did?"

He'd brought the tesseract to Sokovia. He'd all but put it into HYDRA's hands himself, because he'd hoped to get Bucky back from the dead. Steve knew very well he'd done that, and yet with Peggy there lecturing him like he was a misbehaving schoolboy, he no longer felt like he needed to admit it. "What about you?" he asked, accusing. "You sent Fury to help me."

He should have known better. "I sent Nick because I _believed_ in you!" Peggy informed him. "I've always believed in you, Steve. Not in Captain America," she added, "but in _you_. I believed that when all the chips were down you would do the right thing. Steve is pretending to forgive me because he has a _plan_! Steve wants to know where the tesseract is because he has a _plan_! He's going to do something bloody foolish and save the world again!"

"I _did_ save it!" Steve protested. HYDRA did not have the tesseract and the city of Sokovia looked exactly like it had before the time machine turned on. As long as he ignored the hundreds of people who'd lost their memories, and the thousands more whose loved ones had forgotten them.

"You saved it _from yourself_!" said Peggy. "If it weren't for you, it wouldn't have been in danger to begin with! Don't try to deflect the blame onto Fyodorova," she added. "She played her part, to be sure, but you're the one who brought both her and the tesseract to this country. Stark and Fury were following my orders. I told them to do as you said. But you... what were you _thinking_?" she repeated.

Steve was getting mad now. Everything Peggy was saying was true, and he was both disappointed and yet unsurprised to learn she'd been using him the whole time he thought he was using _her_. He'd seen her deliver verbal eviscerations to other people in the past, tearing their arguments limb from limb before they could even voice them, and it had always made him proud. Having it directed at _him_ was infuriating, and knowing she was right only made it even worse.

"I was trying to save my friend!" said Steve.

"Your friend died forty years ago!" Peggy snapped back. "You know what, Steve? I'm _glad_ I never told you what I suspected about the Winter Soldier, if this is what you were going to do about it! You're just like her, aren't you?" She pointed at the door to Connie's room. "You were asked to choose between the world and a dead man! And you _did_!"

Steve opened his mouth, but he had nothing to say. She hadn't told him anything he didn't already know. She'd covered all his counter-arguments. If he said he'd had no idea HYDRA was planning to take hostages, she would tell him that they wouldn't have been _able_ to if he hadn't left town. He was left standing there, full of rage he had no outlet for because as usual, the only person he was angry with was himself.

"Do you really want to come back to SHIELD?" asked Peggy.

"No," said Steve immediately. He could not do that. Not after what she'd hidden from him, not after what he'd done about it, and his pride could not take another remonstrance like this.

Peggy nodded curtly, and then without another word, she turned and walked away. Two agents who'd been waiting in the hall joined her on either side, and Steve saw her lower her head and hunch her shoulders. With her face invisible, it was impossible to tell what she was thinking, but Steve's gut told him she was crying.

The effect on his mood was dramatic: he had never seen Peggy cry anything but happy tears before, and all the anger immediately drained from him, leaving... nothing. He didn't know how to react or even what to feel. Especially when it was his own selfishness that had broken her.

He felt a hand on his shoulder – Fury was there.

"Janet's leaving, too," Fury said, as if that were supposed to offer some comfort. "She's going back to San Francisco to take over running Pym Technologies. Says it'll give her a more regular schedule and she can spend more time with Hope."

"That's nice," said Steve, without enthusiasm.

Fury gently steered him back to his hospital bed.

* * *

It was another two days before Steve was allowed to get on a plane back to the United States. He kind of wondered if he'd be going back only to face trial for treason, but surely somebody would have said something to him if he were. There was nobody to see him off – Peggy had already left, Fury was coming with him, and Connie and Viper would be staying in Sokovia for trial and, most likely, execution.

"They flew in a couple of experts from Rome to look at the amnesiacs," Fury said conversationally, as they did up their seat belts in the otherwise empty airplane. "Their theory is that all the electrical activity in the victims' brains stopped and then had to re-start when the time machine put them back together, and since memory is dynamic anything that wasn't wired right into the structures of their brains, like languages they learned as children, is gone."

"So nobody died, but we still lost them all," sighed Steve.

"Could have been worse," said Nick.

"Not much," Steve replied glumly. "Are _you_ angry with me?" Fury didn't seem to be, but Steve wanted to be sure.

"I don't have time to be angry," Nick said. "I've got a report to write."

"I mean it," said Steve. "I need to know exactly which bridges I've burned, okay?"

"I'm a little ticked off that you didn't tell me what you were doing and give me an opportunity to talk you out of it," said Fury. "But last time I tried to talk you out of doing something ridiculously stupid I lost, and we managed to save five astronauts and fight the Red Skull in space, so even if I'd known I probably would have just gone along with it eventually."

"Well, like Peggy says, we never find out what _would have happened_ ," Steve said. "Even with a time machine."

"We did get Barnum," Fury went on. "Viper's in custody, we kept the tesseract, and we now know that Zola's alive, so we can find him and figure out what _he's_ up to. All things considered, I'd say we broke even."

"Yeah, well, you don't have any relatives who don't remember you," Steve pointed out, and turned to stare moodily out the little window at the rain pounding the tarmac. It was late afternoon, and between that and the cloud cover, outside was dark enough that Steve's reflection in the window was clearly visible. The scars were still there. They already seemed smaller, but maybe that was just his imagination. Steve kind of hoped they never healed completely. He felt like he _needed_ some kind of permanent mark from his whole fiasco, something to remind him. Even if it would ruin his budding career in television commercials.

That reminded him – SHIELD was one bridge he had most definitely burned, so he was going to have to find real, regular work somewhere else. Maybe Janet could offer him something at Pym. He could do grunt work, moving heavy stuff in a warehouse. He could be a security guard. There had to be something, and he was going to have to figure it out because he needed to support both himself and Natalia. There was no way he was leaving that little girl to Peggy's tender mercies... and that in turn twisted his stomach inside-out as he realized somebody was going to have to tell Natalia what had happened to Connie.

"How about you?" Fury asked. "You mad?"

"I don't even know anymore," Steve said.

* * *

Three weeks later, Steve moved out of his apartment on the edge of Harlem. He didn't have much to pack, but Tony still stopped by to help him pack it. Steve wasn't sure what to say to him when he arrived, so Tony himself got the awkward part out of the way immediately.

"I saw the announcement," he said, not even bothering with _hello_.

It had been in the supermarket tabloids that morning, when Steve had grabbed a cup of coffee and a bagel from a place up the street: _Stark Widow Remarries_. Maria and Stane had gotten married in a 'private ceremony' with only 'close friends' attending. Steve had spotted Zeke Stane in the background of the accompanying photograph, but no sign of Tony Stark.

"She called and invited me," Tony added. He put the briefcase he was carrying down on top of a stack of cardboard boxes full of Steve's kitchen utensils – the ones he'd bought so that Connie could cook for him. "I told her I was busy."

"Are you sure you're not gonna regret that?" asked Steve. It did seem to make the split between Tony and what was left of his family something very final.

"Maybe," said Tony. "Right now I don't give a shit." He paused, realized what he'd just said, and put a hand over his mouth. "Sorry. Where's Tiny Tali?" That was the nickname he'd given Natalia.

"She's napping, lucky for you," Steve said.

Tony was relieved. "Anyway," he added, "she said Stane still wants me to come back. Remember that model I built when I was working on my spacesuit design? He's trying to turn it into a new kind of battle armor." Tony scowled. "It was supposed to be for _space_ , but he's gonna armor it up and patent it and make a weapon out of it."

Of course, Tony himself had done the same thing with it – Steve suspected the armor he'd been wearing in Sokovia was based on similar ideas. He didn't say so, though, because that wasn't the point. _Everything I ever built became a weapon_ , Howard had said sadly. Steve was willing to bet he'd never said it to his son.

"I'm gonna miss you," Tony added.

"I'm gonna miss you, too," Steve told him. "Look, if you need something and you don't think you can trust anybody here, you can call me, okay? I'll fly you out to San Francisco if I have to, and we'll catch a ball game or something." He wanted Tony to know that he wasn't abandoning him. Not only was Tony one of the few friends Steve still had, but _Steve_ was the closest thing _Tony_ currently had to a parental figure. Steve wanted to reassure the kid that he wouldn't die on him with nothing resolved, as Howard had, or choose another relationship to prioritize, like Maria.

"Thanks," said Tony. He looked awkwardly at the floor for a moment, then picked up the briefcase he'd brought in. "Madame Director told me to give you this," he said, and opened it to pull out a folder full of papers.

"What is it?" Steve asked, flipping through it. It seemed to be sort of an informal scrapbook. There were photocopied documents, some of them with lines blacked out, newspaper clippings, typed reports, and even a photograph or two. The pages were stamped with security classifications, and almost all of them had the same file number in the upper corner, along with the words _Winter Soldier_.

"She said she wanted you to know exactly what evidence she had for who _Zima_ actually was," Tony explained, "and where they were keeping him."

"Did she?" Steve asked. If this were an attempt at an apology, it was too little, too late... but there was also a real possibility it was something else. It was possible that Peggy was still using him, trying to manipulate him into going and doing something about a problem she could not tackle herself without political consequences.

What would have happened if she'd shown him this last year, he wondered. What would he have thought? Would he have gone immediately to the Soviet Union, regardless of the risk, to find out if it were really Bucky or not? Would he have tried to save him? Would he have been able to? It was useless to wonder, because he would never know, but Steve was sure he'd be playing the possibilities out in his mind for the rest of his life.

Paperclipped to the back of the folder were a couple of extra pages. One was a Yugoslavian newspaper article with an attached translation, describing how the two women responsible for the 'dimensional rift' in Sokovia had been executed by firing squad. There was a blurry photograph of two soldiers, carrying away a body with long dark hair. Steve's insides twisted. Connie was dead, then, without any chance to absolve herself.

The second page, however, was from SHIELD's report on the incident. Although a few words here and there had been blacked out, the gist was clear: Soviet agent Konstantina Fyodorova had vanished from prison a week before the execution date, and the unidentified woman who called herself Viper had been shot and killed by a Russian assassin who'd broken into the prison compound. The phrase _Russian assassin_ made Steve wonder at first whether Connie had decided to finish what she'd started after all, but then his eye caught the word _winter_.

That was impossible. Viper couldn't have been killed by the Winter Soldier. Bucky was _dead_ , and Steve knew that for damned certain, as much as the knowledge hurt. That must mean...

"There are other winter soldiers?" he asked.

"Apparently," said Tony. "Or else this new one is a fraud. Either way, she wanted to warn you, just in case."

Steve nodded. "I'll keep an eye out," he promised. A half-dozen ideas had already occurred to him. Clones, perhaps. Or maybe the reason the Winter Soldier was an empty shell to begin with was because he'd _already_ been duplicated by HYDRA's time machine like all those poor people in Sokovia. Maybe the _real_ Bucky was still out there somewhere. Steve didn't want to let himself feel that hope, not when he remembered what it had already made him do, but there it was, and he knew that it, too, was never going to go away.

* * *

Three days after that, Steve's plane touched down at San Francisco International Airport, and Janet was there to meet him. She was wearing a black motorcycle jacket and a yellow skirt, and smiling even though her eyes were still sad.

"Welcome to California, Captain Rogers," she said. "Don't worry, we'll tan up that pasty Irish backside of yours in no time!"

"I don't tan, Mrs. Pym," Steve said. "I burn." His enhanced body would heal it overnight – the next morning the burned layer would peel in sheets, leaving him as pale as ever.

"It's Janet, Captain," she said.

He nodded. "Steve."

Janet squatted a bit to talk to Natalia, who was holding Steve's hand and clutching her Rainbow Brite doll. "Hi, Natalia," she said. "Do you remember me?"

Natalia nodded.

"Hope's looking forward to seeing you again," Janet told her. "She's made a few friends here, but she'll be happy to see a familiar face." She straightened up again. "I've been in touch with a realtor, looking for a rental for a single dad with a young daughter," she told Steve. "She's got a couple of places lined up to show you."

"Can't wait to see them," said Steve. "Are you looking forward to picking out a new home, Natalia?"

"Yeah," the little girl said. "Will it have swings?" Her English had been improving by leaps and bounds, at least partially because she could no longer fall back on Russian as she had with Connie.

"Definitely," Steve said. "If it doesn't, I'll build some."

They stayed in a hotel that night. Janet helped them check in, and Steve thanked her and said goodnight before trundling their luggage – most of it Natalia's – into the elevator. She stood on her tiptoes to push the button for the third floor, then stood back and announced quite casually, " _Konyshka_ is going to meet us here."

"What?" asked Steve. "Who told you that?" He didn't want Natalia getting her hopes up. Connie had seemed so determined to be punished for her lapse in judgment that even her disappearance from the Sokovian prison didn't convince him she was coming back. She'd seemed to love Natalia so much that he suspected separating herself from this child was part of her self-imposed sentence.

" _Konyshka_ did,"said Natalia. "She came into my room and told me she was coming."

She'd been dreaming, Steve thought. There didn't seem to be any other explanation. Even if Connie wanted to come back, why would she? She'd never seemed to believe Steve wasn't mad at her, and even if she did, Peggy had never liked her and no longer needed her help. If she resurfaced she would probably be thrown back in prison.

"Are you sure?" he asked gently.

"Very sure," she replied firmly.

The elevator doors opened, and Steve went to unlock the door of their room. He probably had a few days to talk to Natalia about it and let her down gently. The worst part was, he was now going to be disappointed, himself, if a few days went by and Connie didn't show. Steve missed Connie. The extended game of make-believe he'd played with her through January and February was the closest he was ever likely to come to the happy ending he'd dreamed of during the war. It had been a lie, but it had been a _comfortable_ lie.

He opened the door. Connie was sitting cross-legged on the end of the bed, looking at the room service menu. She was wearing jeans and a denim jacket over a black t-shirt with a brightly coloured paint splatter pattern on it, and her hair had grown out a little and was now in a voluminous spiral perm, but Steve had recognized her through her last change of appearance, and he recognized her now. And while he was standing there staring, wondering how on earth she'd known what room he was going to be in, Natalia pushed past him with a happy cry.

" _Konyshka_!" she squealed.

Connie stood and scooped Natalia up in her arms. "I missed you, _Solnyshka_!" she said, and kissed Natalia on both cheeks. "I missed you so much!"

Steve stepped into the room and shut the door. Connie turned to him and smiled sheepishly.

"I couldn't leave her," she said. "It's not that I don't think you'll look after her. I know you will. I just... couldn't."

Steve nodded, and set down the luggage so he could come closer. "I'm happy to see you," he said.

"You are?" she asked. She held Natalia a little closer, keeping her eyes warily on Steve the whole time. She was nervous, half-afraid Steve would immediately call Peggy, or the police, and if he did she intended to escape with the girl.

Steve came up and ruffled Natalia's hair. "Yeah, I am," he said. "So how many countries are you a wanted criminal in now? The US, the USSR, Yugoslavia..."

"Those are under my real name," said Connie. "There are outstanding warrants for pseudonyms of mine in France, Belgium, South Africa, New Zealand, China, Chile, Guatemala, and Israel." Her smile got wider and less sheepish. "That's eleven."

"Go rob a bank in Mexico," Steve said. "Might as well make it an even dozen."

Connie set Natalia back down on the floor. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry for everything."

"So am I," said Steve. "If I hadn't gone running off and taken you with me, HYDRA wouldn't have been able to touch her."

"You wanted to save your friend," said Connie.

"You wanted to save your daughter," said Steve.

Her smile had warmed before her eyes, but they were friendlier now, too. "So you're going to be working for Pym's?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'll be doing art for their advertising campaigns," said Steve. He reached up to touch the bit of rough skin around his eye. It didn't look as bad as it had in the hospital, but he was oddly relieved to know it wasn't going to go away. "I'm not as photogenic as I once was."

"Asshole," said Connie. "You know damned well you're gorgeous."

That was the first time he'd ever heard Connie compliment _anyone_ on their appearance, and it started him. Had she always thought that? Or did she think it at all? Was she just saying it because it was a thing people said? He would never know, any more than he would know what _would have happened_ to Bucky, but this at least was a less hurtful kind of not knowing.

"I'm gonna be doing some other work, too," Steve added. "Janet and Peggy had this idea for a team of extraordinary people, but now Janet and I think these people shouldn't work for SHIELD. Fury's promised to drop us hints about where we'll be needed, but we'll be under our own leadership." He suspected Peggy would be watching them, and that anything Fury told them would have passed through her first, but Steve had every intention of watching her right back. He would not be SHIELD's tool in any capacity.

"Do you need a cook?" asked Connie.

"We need a Black Widow," said Steve.

Her smile grew brighter. "Well, you're not going to get very many applications."

"It's invite-only," Steve told her.

"Oh, so you're inviting me, and _I_ get to decide?" asked Connie.

"No, we talk to you and we come to an agreement that we can all live with," said Steve. "It's a democracy of sorts."

Connie shrugged. "I'm not so good at democracy, but I'll give it a shot," she teased. "What do you call this group?"

"Janet named it," Steve said. "She calls it the Avengers."


End file.
